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Zhc Jewish (Question 



THE JEWISH QUESTION 



BY 

K. C. GAEBELEIN 



PUBLICATION OFFICE "OUR HOPE" 

80 SECOND STREET, NEW YORK 



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Copyright 1912. by A. C. Gaebelein. 



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CONTENTS 

Chapter. Page. 
I. The Question Solved 1 

II. "For I am also an Israelite" _ 12 

III. The Remnant — Israel's Apostasy not 

Complete 19 

IV. Israel's Apostasy and Blindness not 

Permanent 32 

V. "To Provoke them to Jealousy" 41 

VI. Their Reception — Life from the Dead 49 

VII. The Parable of the Olive Tree 64 

VIII. A Mystery Made Known 11 

The Messianic Question 1 05 



The Question Stated* 

CHAPTER L 

The eleventh chapter in the great Epistle 
to the Romans is perhaps the least studied 
of all in this Epistle of our salvation. 
It contains not alone deeply interesting 
truths, but is of great importance and 
puts before us most solemn facts. The Holy 
Spirit unfolds here the purposes of God con- 
cerning the Jewish race. The knowledge of 
Israel's place and position in God's revealed 
plan is of incalculable importance. All the 
confusion in doctrine and practice we see 
about us, is more or less the result of a 
deplorable ignorance which exists throughout 
Christendom concerning Israel's place and 
future. The carnalizing of the professing 
church has been the result of this ignorance. 
All Christendom attends to Israel's earthly 
calling, and not only fails in it most misera- 
bly, but also dishonors God and His Word. 

If it were possible to straighten out the 
confusion existing about us in the professing 
church, the proper starting point would be, 
no doubt, to teach God's purposes concerning 
Israel. 



2 The Jewish Question. 

Let us first consider in what part of 
Romans we find the chapter which contains 
the Jewish question. 

Romans is divided into three parts. The 
first section extends from chapter i-viii ; the 
second contains chapters ix, x and xi ; the last 
is from chapter xii-xvi. Over the first part 
we put the word "Salvation" over the second 
"Dispensation" and over the third "Exhorta- 
tion." 

This is how God makes His truth known. 
First He tells us what He has done for us in 
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ ; how rich and 
full His Grace is toward all who believe, Jew 
and Gentile. In the next place He acquaints 
us with dispensation; that is, How He, the 
Sovereign, dispenses ; how He deals with Jew 
and Gentile. In dispensational truths He 
takes His child, so to speak, into confidence, 
because He has made him a son and an heir, 
and introduces him into the knowledge of His 
ways in the government and future of the 
earth. Having shown us what He has done 
for us and what He has made us, He speaks 
to us once more, showing what manner of 
men we should be. This is exhortation. Re- 
verse this order, salvation, dispensation and 
exhortation, or leave one out, and you will 
have but confusion. 



The Question Stated. 3 

Our chapter then stands in the second, the 
dispensational part, that great parenthesis, 
in which the Holy Spirit traces God's righte- 
ous and merciful ways. At the end of the 
salvation part of this Epistle we find a chap- 
ter of summing up, the eighth. The second 
part has likewise such a climax, the chapter 
which is before us. It brings in not only the 
Jews, but the Gentiles, and in a measure the 
church of God. From this chapter we can 
reach back over the entire history of Israel. 
From here we can learn their present condi- 
tion and, above all, we can study their future 
and learn what God will yet do in fulfillment 
of His oathbound covenants. 

There is, however, a special reason why the 
Holy Spirit in Romans introduces the three 
chapters, which form the second part. 

It is the following. In the first part, chap- 
ters i to viii, the Spirit of God shows that 
Jews and Gentiles have no righteousness and 
are lost, that there is not one that doeth 
good, no, not one. Then God reveals His 
righteousness and His salvation for Jew and 
Gentile, which is by faith. An old saint was 
asked what the three great lessons are which 
he had learned in his Christian experience, 
and he said: "First, I learned that I have 
never done anything good in my life ; second- 



4 The Jewish Question. 

ly, that I could never do anything good; and, 
thirdly, that Christ has done it all." This is 
precisely what is taught in the first part of 
Romans. 

Now, after the guilt and lost condition of 
the Jew and Gentile are fully demonstrated, 
the Jew is left out of sight. In this dispensa- 
tion of Grace God deals alike with the believ- 
ing Jew and Gentile; there is no difference. 
The believing Jew and Gentile are under 
Grace, linked with the Second Man, in pos- 
session of every spiritual blessing in Christ 
Jesus, a Son and an Heir, destined to be like 
the Firstbegotten from the dead. 

But now comes an objection from the side 
of the Jew. Questions are frequently asked 
in Romans. The Jew now has a question, 
after he has heard all about this salvation 
by Grace for him and for the Gentile, as well 
as the results of this salvation. 

This is the question: "What becomes of 
our national promises and blessings? God 
has promised us so much as a nation, and 
these promises are not yet fulfilled; will 
He keep them?" In other words, "Does 
God's dealing in Grace with the Gentiles 
mean that He is through with us as a nation, 
that our people are now completely and final- 
ly rejected and are the many promises con- 



The Question Stated. 5 

tained in the oracles of God never to be ful- 
filled?" 

This question is answered in the second 
part of Romans. In it the Holy Spirit shows 
how righteously and mercifully God deals 
with the Jews and Gentiles, and the end of 
the section, our chapter, shows most blessedly 
that God has not cast away His people; a 
time of their fullness and reception is coming 
and all Israel shall be saved. 

The chapter in its construction is very 
simple. In the preceding one we read: "But 
Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found 
of them that sought me not; I was mani- 
fested unto them that asked not after me. 
But to Israel he saith, All day long I have 
stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient 
and gainsaying people." The quotation is 
from Isaiah lxv:l, 2, and in it the call of the 
Gentiles is plainly foretold as well as God's 
attitude towards His own people Israel. Now 
if God is found of them (the Gentiles) and 
manifested unto them that asked not after 
Him, and if His own people have no answer 
to His hands stretched forth towards them, 
would one not be justified to say He has cast 
away His people? The eleventh chapter 
therefore asks this very question: "Hath 
God cast away His people ?" This question is 



6 The Jewish Question. 

the great superscription of this chapter. The 
fact that God has not cast away His people is 
demonstrated throughout the chapter. Up 
to the 27th verse the Holy Spirit gives seven 
answers and proofs to this question that His 
people, Israel, are not finally nor completely 
cast away. After this fact is demonstrated 
comes the great and sublime ending (verses 
28-36) corresponding to the ending of the 
doctrinal part of the Epistle in the eighth 
chapter. We shall follow in our exposition 
these seven answers and proofs. 
They are the following: 

I. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus (verse 
1). 

II. There is a remnant according to the 
election of Grace, hence Israel is not com- 
pletely cast away (verses 2-6). 

III. The blindness of Israel is partial and 
judicial. It is never complete nor final. The 
Scriptures prove this fact (verses 7-10) . 

IV. Salvation has come to the Gentiles by 
their fall and by it God wishes to provoke 
them to jealousy (verse 11). 

V. There is a promised fullness and receiv- 
ing of Israel which according to the prophetic 
Word will mean greater riches for the world, 
even life from the dead (verses 11-15). 



The Question Stated. 7 

VI. The parable of the olive tree (verses 
16-24). 

VII. The mystery made known (verses 25- 
27). 

Look at the question first and its answer. 
The answer is best translated by "Far be 
the thought/' "God has not cast away His 
people whom He f oreknew." The question of 
the casting away of Israel* is, of course, a 
national question and not the question of the 
individual. God had foreknown His people 
and called them to a distinctive and peculiar 
place in the government of the earth. The 
nation is called to be a peculiar treasure 
unto the Lord above all people, a kingdom 
of priests and a holy nation, a people pre- 
pared to show forth His praises (Exod. xix). 
God's gifts and calling are without repent- 
ance. Throughout the Word He declares 
that Israel should never cease to be a nation 
before Him and that they shall be at last 
that in the earth, as a nation, for which He 
called them. "Thus saith the Lord, which 
giveth the sun for a light by day, and the 



*We take it for granted that all our readers be- 
lieve that Israel, God's ancient people, the natural 
seed of Abraham, is meant. How one can speak in 
this chapter of a spiritual Israel and that the Church 
is meant is beyond our conception. 



8 The Jewish Question. 

ordinances of the moon and of the stars for 
a light by night, which divideth the sea 
when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of 
hosts is His name ; if those ordinances depart 
from me, saith the Lord, then the seed of 
Israel also shall cease from being a nation 
before me forever. Thus saith the Lord: If 
heaven above can be measured, and the foun- 
dations of the earth searched out beneath, I 
will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all 
that they have done, saith the Lord" (Jere- 
miah xxxi:35-37). 'Tor I am with thee, 
saith the Lord, to save thee ; though I make 
a full end of all nations whither I have scat- 
tered thee, yet will I not make a full end of 
thee, but I will correct thee in measure and 
will not leave thee altogether unpunished" 
(Jerem. xxxrll). Numerous other passages 
could be quoted in which God assures His 
people that He will never abandon them for- 
ever. Their past history proves this. Again 
and again God's firstborn Son, Israel, (Ex. 
iv:22) had been disobedient, a stiff necked 
people. They were punished and led into 
captivity, their city plundered and razed, 
their temple burned and their land laid 
waste, and still God's infinite mercy hovered 
over the people and the land and He never 
said that He hath cast them away. Then a 



The Question Stated. 9 

part of the nation, the Jews, rejected their 
Messiah and King, who had come to His own ; 
they cried their awful "Away with Him!" 
"Crucify Him!" "His blood be upon us and 
upon our children!" Yet from that cross 
there came that wonderful prayer, "Father, 
forgive them for they know not what they 
do." Again the offers of Grace were spurned 
by the nation, and those of the nation who 
had believed were bitterly persecuted and 
some murdered by their unbelieving brethren, 
and yet over all the Spirit of God hath put 
the assuring statement, "God hath not cast 
away His people whom He foreknew." The 
temple was laid in ruins once more, the 
nation peeled and scattered into the corners 
of the earth. Their saddest dispersion began 
and with it trials and sufferings such as their 
previous history had not known, and still 
over this great dispersion and all their ter- 
rible experiences the Spirit of God has 
placed these words: "God hath not cast 
away His people whom He foreknew." 

What a different answer Christendom has 
to this question. If the Jew asks of Christen- 
dom the question about his national future, 
the promises of blessing and glory, he re- 
ceives a strange answer. Or if he turns to 
the great commentators on the Bible he finds 



10 The Jewish Question. 

teachings altogether opposite to the plain 
national promises, which belong still to his 
people. He is told that God hath cast them 
away and that there is nothing left for them. 
He hears that the church is Israel and all the 
promises given to the original Israel find now 
a spiritual fulfillment in the church. But the 
intelligent, orthodox Hebrew refuses to ac- 
cept this spiritualizing mode of interpreta- 
tion nor does he find anywhere throughout 
Christendom that his national promises and 
national glories are now fulfilled in a spirit- 
ual way in the church. If all this wrong and 
confusing interpretation of the Word of God, 
which does not distinguish between Israel 
and the church, were true, and if it were 
true that God hath cast away totally and 
finally Israel, then we certainly would have 
to give up the belief in an inspired Bible. 
It would be true what higher criticism is 
constantly claiming, that the Jewish prophets 
were patriots and dreamers and not inspired 
by God. Furthermore, God's gifts and calling 
would be not without repentance ; God would 
have gone back upon His own word, and in 
consequence of this we sinners of the Gentiles 
would have no assurance of our salvation. 
For who can assure us that God really means 
what He hath said about us, if He hath cast 



The Question Stated. 11 

away Israel and is not keeping His promises ? 
Will He not do the same with us ? We learn 
therefore that the question of Romans xi is 
a very important one indeed. 



"For I Am Also An Israelite/' 

CHAPTER II. 

The first answer to the important question 
"Hath God cast away His people?" is the 
great Apostle to the Gentiles. We read in the 
first verse, "For I also am an Israelite, of the 
seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 
God hath not cast away His people whom He 
f oreknew." The Holy Spirit points then first 
of all to the Apostle and puts him before us 
as a proof that God has not completely and 
finally rejected Israel. It is a significant fact 
that in each of the three chapters which com- 
pose the dispensational part of Romans the 
Apostle Paul stands in the foreground. "I 
say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my con- 
science bearing witness with me in the Holy 
Spirit that I have great grief and uninter- 
rupted pain in my heart, for I have wished, I 
myself, to be a curse from the Christ, for my 
brethren, my kinsmen according to flesh." 
Thus the ninth chapter begins and in the 
tenth we read of his prayer for Israel, not 
his prayer alone but surely the prayer of the 



For I Am Also An Israelite. 13 

Holy Spirit. "Brethren, the delight of my 
heart and my supplication which I address 
to God for them is for salvation" (x:l). In 
our chapter, besides mentioning himself in 
the beginning, he says : "For I speak to you, 
Gentiles, inasmuch as I am Apostle of the 
Gentiles. I glorify my ministry; if by any 
means I shall provoke to jealousy them which 
are my flesh and shall save some from among 
them" (verses 13, 14) . The instrument used 
to make known the mystery of God and the 
unsearchable riches among the Gentiles de- 
clares his great love for his kinsmen and 
prays for their salvation. While Gentiles, 
the nations' receive blessings, Israel is still 
"beloved for the Father's sake" and not 
forgotten. 

But why is Paul personally mentioned im- 
mediately after the question concerning 
Israel's position? It is generally said that 
by referring to himself he wishes to prove 
that it is possible for an Israelite to accept 
the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved; he, 
an Israelite full of hatred against the Christ, 
had been saved, and this proves that God has 
not cast away His people. However, the ques- 
tion before us is not whether an individual 
Jew can be saved or cannot be saved; it is a 
national question with which we have to deal. 



14 The Jewish Question. 

Besides this, the possibility of the salvation 
of Jews had been fully demonstrated on the 
day of Pentecost. The three thousand who 
believed on that day were all Jews, as well 
as the thousands who believed after the 
memorable day of the outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit. We have therefore to look for a 
deeper meaning of PauFs name in the begin- 
ning of this chapter. 

The key to this deeper meaning is the fact 
that the Holy Spirit makes the conversion of 
Saul of Tarsus not alone very prominent, but 
also speaks of that event as a pattern. He 
has given us three lengthy accounts of it in 
the Book of Acts (chapters ix, xxii and xxvi). 
In First Timothy we read: "But for this 
reason mercy was shown me, that in me the 
first, Jesus Christ might display the whole 
long suffering, for a delineation of those that 
should hereafter believe on Him to eternal 
life" (1 Tim. i:16). And again it is written: 
"And last of all He was seen of me also as of 
one born out of due time" (literally "an abor- 
tion") (1 Cor. xv :2). These are inspired 
statements which tell us we have to seek for 
a deeper significance of the conversion of him 
who calls himself "a Hebrew of the Hebrews" 
(Phil, iii :5) . It has often been remarked that 
Saul's conversion is the model conversion and 



For I Am Also An Israelite. 15 

the different steps are reproduced in every 
genuine conversion. But this is far from be- 
ing correct. Saul of Tarsus' conversion was 
an altogether unique one. There has, up to 
this time, never been a conversion like this 
one. Never again were the heavens opened 
and a light shone brighter than the sun; 
never again did a sinner, such a blind 
persecutor, behold Jesus in glory and hear 
His voice, and never again was one called in 
such a way "to be an elect vessel" and to 
bear the Name of the Lord "before both na- 
tions and kings and the sons of Israel." His 
conversion is certainly not a pattern or out- 
line of every other conversion and yet it is 
a delineation, a hypotyposis. 

All the great men of the Old Testament, 
priests, prophets and kings, were in their 
lives and experiences patterns, types. The 
great Apostle to the Gentiles, making known 
the salvation to the nations, himself a Jew, 
is no less a type. His wonderful conversion 
is typical of the future conversion of the na- 
tion to whom he belonged according to the 
flesh. What God did in his case He can and 
will do for Israel in a future day. The con- 
version of Saul of Tarsus is the type and 
earnest of Israel's conversion. In this light 
the full meaning of the quoted passages from 



16 The Jewish Question. 

the first Epistle of Timothy and Corinthians 
can be easily understood. In Saul's conver- 
sion Christ showed mercy "the first" or "as a 
first one." There are others to whom that 
mercy is to be shown and to whom mercy will 
come under the same circumstances and by 
the same heavenly manifestation of the glori- 
fied Son of Man, and the people to whom this 
will happen is Israel. When we read of Paul 
that he saw the Lord as one born out of due 
season, it is the same thought which under- 
lies this statement. The untimely birth, be- 
fore the time, suggests another birth time as 
well as another birth, the birth of the nation, 
when Israel, the remnant of His people, will 
be born again by looking upon Him in glory, 
whom they have pierced. 

The comparison of Saul's conversion with 
the future conversion of Israel as revealed in 
the prophetic Word is extremely striking. 
The delineation is perfect. 

1. Saul of Tarsus in unbelief typifies the 
state of Israel as a nation throughout this 
present age. He was a learned Pharisee, a 
fierce persecutor, breathing out threatenings 
and slaughter against the disciples of the 
Lord, blind and unbelieving. Such is Israel, 
another unbelieving Saul, and, like him, 
zealous for God without knowledge. 



For I Am Also An Israelite. 17 

2. The opened heavens, the vision and 
voice of the glorified Jesus, by which Saul of 
Tarsus was arrested in his career, are typical 
of the coming day when the heavens will be 
opened again and the Lord Jesus Christ will 
be manifested in power and in glory. At His 
second visible and glorious coming the rem- 
nant of Israel will behold Him and learn by 
His glorious appearing that Jesus is their 
Messiah and King (Zechariah xii: 10-14, Mat- 
thew xxiv:29, 30, Revel. i:7). The opened 
heavens, the great light flashing forth, the 
vision and voice of Jesus, the prostrate Saul 
there on the road to Damascus, was but a 
little sample of what God will do for the rem- 
nant of His earthly people and how they shall 
at last know Him and receive Him. 

3. Paul's service to nations and kings 
foreshadows Israel's coming ministry to the 
nations of the earth. All nations are yet to 
know the glory of the Lord, but world con- 
version is only possible after Israel is con- 
verted. Through Israel all the nations of the 
earth will at last be blessed. 

These three great facts seen in the conver- 
sion of Saul, typifying Israel's unbelief, the 
manner and result of their conversion, we 
shall follow throughout the chapter and learn 



18 The Jewish Question. 

from the Scriptures some of the revealed de- 
tails. We understand therefore why the Holy 
Spirit puts the Apostle Paul immediately 
after the question of the chapter is asked. 
What manifestation of the grace and wisdom 
of God ! The instrument chosen to reveal the 
mysteries hidden in former ages and to com- 
plete the Word of God, the one to whom is 
given the full knowledge of the Gospel of 
Grace to be preached among the Gentiles, 
while Israel is set aside for a time, is also 
made a type, a pattern of what Israel is to be 
and to receive in the future, when God will 
arise and have mercy upon Zion. 



The Remnant — Israel's Apostasy 
Not Complete* 

CHAPTER III. 

The second answer to the important ques- 
tion and argument that God has not cast 
away His people Israel is continued in verses 
2-6. "God hath not cast away His people 
whom He foreknew. Know ye not what the 
Scripture says in the history of Elias, how he 
pleads with God against Israel ? Lord, they 
have killed Thy prophets, they have dug down 
Thine altars ; and I have been left alone and 
they seek my life." But what says the divine 
answer to him ? "I have left to Myself seven 
thousand men who have not bowed the knee 
to Baal. Thus, then, in the present time also 
there has been a remnant according to elec- 
tion of grace. But if by grace, it is no more 
of works; since otherwise grace is no more 
grace." 

It is historical evidence which is placed in 
these words before us. The Holy Spirit 
reaches back into the history of the nation 
and calls our attention to an important 
episode. The prophet Elijah lived in a time 



20 The Jewish Question. 

when almost everything among the profes- 
sing people of God was being swept away into 
the apostasy. A great reformation took 
place; God had answered the call of Elijah 
on Mount Carmel by fire, and when the fire 
of the Lord consumed the burnt sacrifice, and 
the wood and the stones, and the dust, and 
licked up the water that was in the trench, 
and when all the people saw, they cried out : 
"Jehovah is God ! Jehovah is God !" The pro- 
phets of Baal were slain there and then. The 
Lord also graciously opened the heavens and 
there was an abundance of rain. All this 
has a typical and dispensational meaning, 
which we cannot follow in detail at this time. 
The wonderful manifestation of the Lord out 
of the opened heavens, however, did not turn 
the people from the path of apostasy. A 
little while later Jezebel sent a messenger 
unto Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, 
and more also, if I make not thy life as the 
life of one of them by to-morrow about this 
time" (1 Kings xix:2). Elijah, in the weak- 
ness of the flesh, fails and flees. We find 
him a day's journey in the wilderness. There 
we see him under a juniper tree, and he re- 
quested for himself that he might die, and 
said: It is enough; now, O Lord, take away 
my life ; for I am not better than my Fathers. 



The Remnant. 21 

But the Lord meets His servant. "What 
doest thou here, Elijah?" "And he said, I 
have been very jealous for the Lord God of 
hosts; for the children of Israel have for- 
saken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine 
altars, and slain Thy prophets with the 
sword ; and I, even I only, am left ; and they 
seek my life to take it away." Twice he re- 
peats this wonderful tale, born of a discourag- 
ed and unbelieving heart. But now comes the 
answer of the Lord to him. He tells him how 
mistaken he is about being left alone, the 
only Israelite who has not fallen away. "Yet 
I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all 
the knees which have not bowed unto Baal 
and every mouth which hath not kissed him." 
The Lord had a remnant, a faithful remnant, 
among His people even at the time of their 
great apostasy. This is the thought and 
argument here. The apostasy of Israel is 
never a complete apostasy. The Lord has al- 
ways a remnant faithful to Him and the 
covenants among them. In this respect the 
difference of the apostasy of Israel and the 
predicted apostasy of Gentile Christendom is 
very marked. One of Israel's race has ex- 
pressed it very pointedly in the following 
words:* 



*Adolph Saphir. 



22 The Jewish Question, 

"The apostasy of Israel is not as the 
apostasy of Christendom. The apostasy of 
Christendom is incurable, but the apostasy 
of Israel is curable. Although Israel have re- 
jected Jesus, they do not wish to reject God; 
they still believe in His Word; they still in- 
voke His holy name. They still remember 
the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. They still, 
as the Apostle Paul says, have a zeal for God, 
although it is not according to knowledge. 
The children of Israel are like the brethren of 
Joseph. After they had sold Joseph into 
Egypt, they returned to their father Jacob, 
and then for a number of years their conduct 
was less blamable than it had been before. 
They seemed to have been anxious to please 
their father Jacob, and to walk before him 
in the right path. Still, there was upon their 
hearts the blood-guiltiness, in that they had 
delivered their brother Joseph into the hands 
of their enemies. And so it is with Israel 
now. There is still a godly remnant among 
them. There is still the fear of God and the 
acknowledgment of God before their eyes. 
Whereas, what is the history of apostate 
Christendom, as it is presented to us in the 
Scriptures, and the beginnings of which we 
can see already? First, people do not be- 
lieve in Jesus as an atonement. They begin 



The Remnant. 23 

with that. They do not like the blood of 
Jesus. They like the character of Jesus very 
well. Then they give up Jesus too. Then 
they give up the Father too, and do not be- 
lieve in creation. And then they become 
agnostics, and say they know nothing about 
it — whether there is a God or not — the worst 
thing that this world has ever seen, and the 
most insulting to God. And then they give 
up morality, as necessarily they must give it 
up; and then they fall into the most abject 
pessimism, and look upon man as a flower of 
the field, which is to-day and to-morrow is 
cast into the oven. This is the downward 
career of the Gentile apostasy. But in the 
Jewish apostasy there is still kept the con- 
necting link, the golden thread — a spark dy- 
ing, yet not dead, of a belief in God, however 
unenlightened, and in a f uture." 

The Lord always has a remnant among His 
people and that remnant is the sign and evi- 
dence that He hath not cast away His people. 

We shall, however, show what we have to 
understand by "remnant ;" and the remnant 
that has been, and will yet be called, we hope 
to investigate more fully. 

The question concerning the remnant is a 
most interesting one. That the Lord has 
such a remnant according to the election of 



24 The Jewish Question. 

grace among His people, is, as we have stated 
before, an evidence that He hath not cast 
them away. There is a double remnant which 
is to be considered. The remnant which has 
been in the beginning of this dispensation and 
the remnant whicn wih yet be called for a 
definite work ana testimony at the time when 
Israel's Hope will appear and the glorious 
promises made to the nation find their ful- 
fillment. Between these two remnants, a 
remnant at the beginning of the present age 
and a remnant at the end, stands another 
fact — the fact that the Body of the Lord 
Jesus Christ is composed of believing Jews 
and Gentiles and that through the preaching 
of the Gospel of Grace, not alone sinners of 
the Gentiles are added to that body, but also 
Jews who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. 
As soon, then, as a Jew believes he ceases to 
be a Jew. His Hope is no longer national 
and earthly, but heavenly; he belongs no 
longer to the earthly Jerusalem, but to the 
heavenly; he has, like the believing Gentile, 
nothing to do with the law, its ordinances 
and ceremonies. It is impossible to speak of 
a remnant of Israel at this time, which is 
saved by Grace and which holds a specific 
national Jewish position in the earth. When 
the Holy Spirit gave the full revelation con- 



The Remnant. 25 

cerning the church, the body of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, we do not read anything what- 
ever about the believing Jew, who, as it is be- 
ing claimed, "should not sever his connection 
with the nation," and who should still con- 
tinue in keeping Jewish laws and feast days. 
All national distinctions cease in that body, 
and to preach that the believing Jew should 
continue to keep the seventh day, practice 
circumcision, keep the Passover and other 
feast days, is not alone nowhere taught in the 
Epistles, but such teaching is unscriptural 
and brings in a sad and confusing mixture 
which destroys the simplicity of the Gospel. 
Now in the beginning of this present age 
there certainly was such a Jewish-Christian 
remnant in existence. To this the words of 
the apostle refer us. "Thus, then, in the 
present time there has been a remnant accord- 
ing to the election of Grace." That remnant 
of Jewish believers is seen in the opening 
chapters of the Book of Acts. The three 
thousand saved on the day of Pentecost were 
all Jews. Soon there was a very strong as- 
sembly composed of Jewish believers in Jeru- 
salem, who were faithful witnesses for the 
Lord Jesus Christ and who bore a faithful 
testimony in Jerusalem, which was fast 
ripening for the great judgment. Not alone 



26 The Jewish Question. 

in Jerusalem, but also in other parts of the 
land, Jews became believers and formed 
Jewish-Christian synagogues. When Paul 
went to Jerusalem the elders of the Jewish- 
Christian assembly said to him: "Thou 
seest, brother, how many myriads there are 
of the Jews who have believed, and are all 
zealous for the law. And they have been in- 
formed concerning thee that thou teachest all 
the Jews among the nations apostasy from 
Moses, saying that they should not circumcise 
their children, nor walk in the customs" 
(Acts xxi:21). Paul's Gospel certainly 
teaches this, and it was the hour of his 
failure when he went back to the ceremonial 
law. But the passage tells us that there were 
myriads of believers, all Jews who continued 
in the observance of the law. They went to 
the temple to pray, kept the different feasts — 
in one word, they continued in all the Jewish 
customs. God's mercy was still lingering 
over Jerusalem. These Hebrew-Christian be- 
lievers had hopes that the nation would yet 
receive their testimony and accept Him whom 
they had rejected. They were persecuted, 
beaten, some killed, their goods spoiled, cast 
out of the synagogue and the temple, and still 
they continued in their faithful testimony. It 
was a transition period, passing out of the 



The Remnant 27 

old into the new. For a time such an attitude 
of Jewish believers was undoubtedly justi- 
fied. But then the Holy Spirit addressed an 
Epistle to these Hebrews, and that Epistle 
gives us not only a true insight into their 
condition and danger, their steadfastness and 
faithfulness, but it also reveals how the Holy 
Spirit shows them the better things of the 
new covenant. No one can read the Epistle 
to the Hebrews without being convinced that 
in this wonderful commentary to the levitical 
institutions, showing the fulfillment in Him 
who is a better priest, a priest after the order 
of Melchizedek, the Spirit of God aims at 
this very fact, that all ceremonies, all levitical 
observances, are to be discontinued. They 
were all the shadows of better things. In the 
end of the Epistle He speaks that Word which 
showed these Hebrew believers their true 
position, "Let us go forth to Him without the 
camp, bearing His reproach" (Hebr. xiii:13). 
At last Jerusalem fell. The temple was 
destroyed. The people were scattered. It 
was therefore made impossible for Jewish 
believers to continue in the position which 
they held for years. Jewish-Christian as- 
semblies in their peculiar national character 
ceased in their existence. While in the be- 
ginning of this dispensation it was "to the 



28 The Jewish Question. 

Jew first," that order was stopped with the 
full rejection of Jerusalem and the dispersion 
of the Jews. 

However, the existence of a remnant of be- 
lievers among the nation, the myriads who 
had accepted the Lord as their Saviour and 
the Hope of Israel, was a definite proof that 
God had not completely cast away His people. 
It was proof that He was ready to deal with 
them according to His infinite mercy. 

A Jewish remnant in the sense of the 
apostolic days is no longer possible. To teach 
that such a remnant is to be gathered now 
and to attempt the formation of Jewish na- 
tional assemblies of believing Hebrews, who 
continue as Jews though trusting in Christ, 
practicing circumcision, fasts and other 
Jewish customs, is confusing and mars com- 
pletely the doctrines of Grace and that reve- 
lation of all revelations, the church, which is 
His Body. We repeat it once more, the be- 
lieving Jew at this time is not "gentilized," 
as has been pressed so much from certain 
sides, but he becomes a member of the body 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and has with every 
other believer a heavenly hope, a heavenly 
destiny. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes 
to take His own unto Himself, every believ- 



The Remnant. 29 

ing Jew, saved by Grace, will be caught up 
to meet the Lord in the air. 

A fact in this connection must not be over- 
looked. The Lord has put His hand through- 
out this Christian dispensation, in every 
century, upon hundreds and thousands of 
Jews, and through His Grace they have been 
saved, not a few of them in a most remark- 
able way. The past century, the nineteenth, 
has had more witnesses in this respect than 
any other. Some of the best teachers, ex- 
positors of the Scriptures, were converted 
Hebrews. We mention Adolf Saphir, Dr. 
Edersheim, Neander, Cassel, Gottheil and 
Rabinowitz. Some of them were led out of 
the deepest darkness with thousands of others 
whose names are not so universally known. 
This, too, is an evidence that blindness has 
happened only in part to Israel. 

But there is yet to be a Jewish remnant, 
a strong and mighty witness that God hath 
not cast away His people. This future rem- 
nant of believing Hebrews will be called as 
soon as the church is complete and removed 
from the earth.* This remnant to be called 



*If it were true and scriptural that the Church is 
to pass through the great tribulation, it would also 
be perfectly in order to have a Jewish national as- 
sembly of Hebrew believers now. Indeed the estab- 



30 The Jewish Question. 

through Grace corresponds to the remnant 
of the beginning of this age. 

Their Gospel will be the Gospel of the 
Kingdom, "the Kingdom of the Heavens is 
at hand." It will emanate from Jerusalem 
and will be declared among all nations (Matt. 
xxiv:14). Of this remnant, suffering and 
persecuted, we read in the Olivet discourse of 
our Lord. The Old Testament Scriptures are 
full with prophecies concerning the faithful 
remnant of the endtime. The Book of Psalms 
can be best understood in the light of a be- 
lieving remnant of Jews, suffering in the 
midst of the ungodly nation and delivered by 
the coming of the King out of the opened 
heavens. The 144,000 sealed in Revelation 
vii are all Israelites and the company out of 
all nations and tongues, who come out of the 
great tribulation, and are seen as overcomers 
in the second half of this chapter, are the 
fruits of the witness and labors of this Jewish 
remnant. That they do not belong to the 
church is evident from the scope of the Book 
of Revelation. The church is seen in glory 

lishment of such would then be very desirable and 
would be a most definite mark of the endtime. On 
the other hand, it would produce two testimonies, a 
fact that cannot be harmonized with any of God's 
dispensational teachings. 



The Remnant. 31 

in the crowned twenty-four elders in chap- 
ters iv and v. Only after the church is in the 
presence of the Lord can the remnant be 
called and sealed and begin its peculiar testi- 
mony. Now this fact that God has had a 
Remnant and will yet call such a remnant proves 
that He hath not cast away His people. 



Israel's Apostasy and Blindness 
Not Permanent. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The next answer to the question of Romans 
xi and argument of Israel's position in God's 
purposes is taken from the Old Testament 
Scriptures. 

"What is it then? What Israel seeks for, 
that he has not obtained ; but the election has 
obtained, and the rest have been blinded, ac- 
cording as it is written, God has given to 
them a spirit of slumber, eyes not to see, and 
ears not to hear, unto this day. And David 
says, Let their table be for a snare, and for 
a gin, and for a falltrap, and for a recom- 
pense to them ; let their eyes be darkened not 
to see, and bow down their back alway" 
(verses 7-10). 

It is here where commentaries have their 
say about the blindness of Israel and how God 
has completely given up the Jews. What a 
strange way some persons have in interpret- 
ing the Word of God. Some labor to prove 
that in the beginning of this chapter Paul 
means the "spiritual Israel" — the church — 



Israels Apostasy. 33 

and not the literal Israel, but when the same 
expositors reach the verses which are before 
us now, they are quite correct and orthodox 
in saying it is the literal Israel. Such method 
of Bible exposition has done great harm in 
confusing Christian believers, besides being 
dishonoring to God's Word. When the apostle 
speaks here of the election he means the be- 
lieving part of the nation at all times, the 
remnant past, the remnant future, and all 
those who believe now in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. When he speaks of the rest being 
blinded he means the remainder of the nation, 
which is unbelieving. As they refused Him 
who spake, judicial blindness was put upon 
them. Now this judicial blindness must not 
be looked upon in a way as some have done, 
and then by inference to build upon it such 
abominable doctrines as universal salvation. 
They reason God blinded them and they are 
not responsible for what they cannot see. 
God will have mercy upon them all, and all 
Jews will be saved at last, all who died with 
this judicial blindness upon them. We shall 
take up this phase of error later in our 
exposition. 

The judicial blindness is certainly not to 
be understood that every Jew is born with 
this blindness upon him. Far be this 



34 The Jewish Question. 

thought! Every generation of Jews, in re- 
fusing the light which shines for all, in shar- 
ing the sin of their fathers in rejecting their 
Messiah, in continuing in their evil ways of 
unbelief, is put under the sentence of this 
judicial blindness. The Jew may see if he so 
chooses and he may refuse the light. God 
declared in His Word beforehand what would 
happen to them in this respect. 

Before us are three quotations from the 
Old Testament Scriptures. The Hebrews di- 
vide the Old Testament into three parts: 
The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. 
The Holy Spirit here quotes from each of 
these divisions. The passages quoted prove 
that such a judicial blindness was to come 
upon them according to God's sovereign deal- 
ings. Now the most significant fact is that 
in none of these passages to which the Holy 
Spirit calls our attention the teaching is ad- 
vanced that this blindness is to be permanent 
and final. There is no prophecy in the Script- 
ures which declares that the present blinded 
condition of Israel is their permanent and 
final condition. 

The three quotations from the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures teach us much on these lines. 
The first is taken from the Book of Deuter- 
onomy, "Yet the Lord hath given you an 



Israel's Apostasy. 35 

heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to 
hear, unto this day" (Deut. xxix:4). It is 
well known how the whole future of 
Israel is predicted through Moses in the 
closing chapters of the last Book which he 
wrote by divine inspiration. Their whole 
history is outlined. They were to be a people 
blinded, forsaking God, to be scattered in 
consequence of it into the corners of the 
earth. Their whole career of decline and 
apostasy is prophetically revealed. But along- 
side of all these prophecies of what should 
befall them, which were so literally fulfilled, 
we find prophecies relating to their restora- 
tion and future blessing. There is not a word 
anywhere in the writings of Moses which de- 
clares that God would ever leave them under 
the curse and in the condition into which He 
in His governmental dealings had to put 
them. 

If we turn to the prophets, we find that 
Isaiah xxix:10 is quoted: "For the Lord 
hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep 
sleep, and hath closed your eyes ; the prophets 
and your rulers, the seers, hath He covered. 
And the vision of all is become unto you as 
the words of a book that is sealed which men 
deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read 
this, I pray thee, and he saith, I cannot, for 



36 The Jewish Question. 

it is sealed." How all this has been fulfilled 
in the judicial blindness, which has come 
upon Israel ! Eyes and they see not and ears 
and they hear not; they read their own 
Scriptures and worship the law as the very 
breath of God and still they see not Him who 
is the End of the Law ; nor do they hear His 
voice as He speaks in the Book. Their own 
Scriptures are indeed a sealed Book to them. 
But is this condition to prevail forever? Is 
there no hope for a change ? Does Isaiah or 
any other prophet utter nothing but curse 
and blindness upon a disobedient people, for 
whom there is no hope? It is far different. 
Not alone does Isaiah and the rest of God's 
prophets reveal that the apostasy and judg- 
ment of Israel is only temporary, but their 
writings are full of glorious visions of that 
which is yet in store for this nation. It is 
true a Christian exposition of the Scriptures, 
lacking the illuminating power of the Holy 
Spirit has made sad havoc with these visions. 
These visions of a glorious future are almost 
universally applied to the church, and the 
blindness and curses left to the Jews. Such 
unreasonable method of Bible interpretation 
still upheld results in the greatest con- 
fusion. 

We do not need to go outside of the chap- 



Israel's Apostasy. 37 

ter from which we have quoted to show that 
the judicial blindness is not the final state 
of Israel. In the closing verses of Isaiah 
xxix we have Jehovah's comfortable word to 
Israel : 

"And in that day the deaf shall hear the 
words of the Book, and the eyes of the blind 
shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. 
The meek also shall increase their joy in the 
Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice 
in the Holy One of Israel. For the terrible 
one is brought to naught, and the scorner is 
consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are 
cut of" (verses 13-20). This is a prophecy 
relating to the future. "That day" is the day 
of our Lord's manifestation in power and 
glory, and to the blind and deaf people bles- 
sings are promised. Throughout Isaiah's 
vision we find hundreds of promises which 
belong to Israel and which were never ful- 
filled in the past. 

The third division of the Hebrew Bible, the 
Writings, is represented in the passage be- 
fore us by a quotation from the Book of 
Psalms : "Let their table become a snare be- 
fore them, and their very welfare a trap ; let 
their eyes be darkened, that they see not, 
and make their loins continually to shake. 
Pour out thine indignation upon them, and 



38 The Jeivish Question, 

let the fierceness of thine anger take hold of 
them. Let their habitation be desolate; let 
there be no dweller in their tents" (Psalm 
lxix:22-24). 

David uttered these words through the 
Holy Spirit. The connection in which they 
stand is very significant. It is not David who 
relates his sufferings here, but the Spirit of 
Christ testifies beforehand concerning the 
sufferings which are in Christ and the rejec- 
tion of the Messiah by His own people. "Re- 
proach has broken my heart and I am full of 
heaviness ; and I looked for some to take pity, 
but there was none ; and for comforters, but 
I found none. They gave me also gall for my 
meat ; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar 
to drink" (Psalm lxix:20). All this was ful- 
filled in Christ. This very prophecy He re- 
membered on the cross when He said, that 
the Scriptures might be fulfilled, "I thirst." 

The words of imprecation, which follow and 
which are quoted in our chapter, show what 
was to come upon the people who treated Him 
thus. Even so it has been. But shall they 
ever remain in that condition of rejection? 
Shall that awful cry "His blood be upon us 
and upon our children" continually be ex- 
ecuted upon all future generations, or is a day 
coming when that precious blood in its aton- 



Israel's Apostasy. 39 

ing power will cover all Israel and blessing 
will take the place of the curse? We only 
need to turn to the close of this Psalm to find 
an answer once more. "For God will save 
Zion, and will build the cities of Judah ; that 
they may dwell there and have it in posses- 
sion. The seed also of His servants shall in- 
herit it; and they that love His name shall 
dwell therein" (Psalm lxix:35, 36). Here the 
future of Zion and the nation is given. The 
whole Book of Psalms is full of the praises 
of His redeemed people Israel, brought back 
to God and into their own land, with Jehovah 
as King dwelling in their midst. These 
praises are, of course, all future; but these 
Psalms tell us that God has not finally cast 
away His people. We learn therefore that 
the threatened and predicted blindness of 
Israel, predicted in the Law, the Prophets, 
and the Writings, the entire Old Testament, 
has come to pass. But this blindness is not 
complete nor final. The Lord who brought 
blindness upon Israel w r ill yet bless His people 
Israel with peace and do all He spake through 
the mouth of His holy prophets. 

In connection with this we desire to point 
out what a witness the Jewish race is to the 
truth of God's holy Word. It is a super- 
natural fact, which no infidel can explain, 



40 The Jewish Question. 

that thousands of years ago, the entire 
history of this remarkable race was divinely 
foretold. The curse which rests upon them, 
the condition of their land and the city of 
Jerusalem, and much else, bear witness that 
the Bible is the Word of God, that the re- 
jected Jesus is their promised Messiah. 

And the Word of God, which has been so 
literally fulfilled touching the curse, will some 
blessed day be as literally fulfilled in blessing. 



" To Provoke Them to Jealousy/' 

CHAPTER V. 

The next answer to our question is found 
in the eleventh verse. "I say, then, have 
they stumbled in order that they might fall ? 
Far be the thought : but by their fall there is 
salvation to the nations to provoke them to 
jealousy." We have learned before that the 
setting aside of Israel is not final, their blind- 
ness and hardness of heart is not their 
permanent condition. They did stumble in- 
deed, but their stumbling was not for the 
sake of their fall. The second time we find 
in the chapter the emphatic "Far be the 
thought/' Put this thought as far away as 
possible from you, that God should permit 
His own people, His chosen people, the people 
whom He foreknew, to stumble in order that 
they might fall. A wonderful fact is now 
brought to our notice. God's deep councils 
of mercy and wisdom are being put before us. 
"By their fall there is salvation to the na- 
tions." 

This great fact is not altogether unknown 



42 The Jewish Question. 

in the predictions of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, though its fulness is a new revela- 
tion, for we read in the Epistle to the Ephes- 
ians, that the fullness of the grace of God 
towards the nations (Gentiles) is one of the 
mysteries made known through Paul. "For 
this reason, I Paul, prisoner of Christ 
Jesus for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of 
the dispensation of the grace of God which 
is given me to youward ; how that by revela- 
tion He made known unto me the mystery (as 
I wrote afore in a few words, whereby when 
you read, ye may understand my knowledge 
in the mystery of Christ), which in other 
ages was not made known unto the sons of 
men, as it is now revealed unto His holy 
apostles and prophets by the Spirit ; that the 
Gentiles should be fellowheirs and of the 
same body, and partakers of His promise in 
Christ by the Gospel" (Eph. iii:l-6). 

We find, however, while the fact that the 
unsearchable riches of Christ were to be 
preached among the Gentiles for the calling 
out of the church, which is His body, is a 
new revelation, that the very words in the 
verse before us point us back to the Old 
Testament. 

In Deuteronomy xxxii, the farewell song 
of Moses, a God-breathed song and wonder- 



"To Provoke Them To Jealousy" 43 

ful prophecy, the Holy Spirit gives us a 
history of Israel. Their origin and calling, 
the mercy and goodness of God towards them, 
their disobedience and apostasy, rejection and 
punishment, restoration and glorious future, 
all is clearly predicted and outlined. Let the 
infidel and higher critic try to answer this 
argument of supernaturalism contained in 
the song of Moses. There is no answer; it 
is a miracle. 

Beginning at the fifteenth verse of that 
chapter we read : "But Jeshurun waxed fat 
and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art 
grown thick — thou art covered ! Then he for- 
sook God, which made him and lightly 
esteemed the rock of His salvation. They 
provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, 
with abominations provoked they Him to 
anger. They sacrificed unto demons, not to 
God; to gods whom they knew not, to new 
gods that came newly up, whom your fathers 
feared not. Of the Rock that begat thee, 
thou art unmindful, and hast forsaken God 
that formed thee. And when the Lord saw it 
He abhorred them, because of the provoking 
of his sons, and of his daughters. And He 
said, I will hide My face from them, I will 
see what their end shall be; for they are a 
very froward generation, children in whom is 



44 The Jewish Question. 

no faith. They have moved Me to jealousy 
with that which is not God; they have pro- 
voked Me to anger with their vanities, and 
I will move them to jealousy with those that 
are not a people ; I will provoke them to anger 
with a foolish nation" (Deut. xxxii). 

Here we read of Israel's apostasy. The 
Rock, whom they lightly esteemed, the Rock 
of His salvation, is none other than the Lord 
Jesus Christ. In consequence of their un- 
faithfulness and provoking God, the Lord 
would move them to jealousy with those 
which are not a people. We notice that this 
announcement comes in after their apostasy 
was fully established. And so it was in its 
fulfillment. When the Lord Jesus was on 
earth and preached the kingdom of heaven, 
He did so to His own and there was no 
proclamation to the Gentiles. His disciples 
were commanded by Him, not to go in the 
way of the Gentiles, but to go only to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel. After His resur- 
rection, ascension and the pouring out of the 
Holy Spirit, His loving hand was still out- 
stretched towards His blinded, erring people. 
His mercy lingered over Jerusalem. The first 
part of the book of Acts is evidence of it. 
Only after the apostasy was fully established 
the instrument was called, the Apostle of the 



"To Provoke Them To Jealousy!' 45 

Gentiles, Paul, to make known the fact, "sal- 
vation is come by their fall to the Gentiles to 
provoke them to jealousy." 

In the ninth and tenth chapters of this 
epistle we find other Old Testament passages, 
which give glimpses of the rejection of Israel, 
for a time and the call of the Gentiles, "Even 
us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews 
only, but also of the Gentiles. As He saith 
also in Osee, I will call them My people, which 
were not My people, and her beloved, which 
was not beloved. And it shall come to pass 
that in the place where it was said unto them, 
Ye are not My people, there shall they be cal- 
led the children of God" (Rom. ix:25, 26, 
compare with Hosea i:10; ii:23). "But 
Esaias is very bold and saith, I was found 
of them that sought Me not; I was made 
manifest unto them, that asked not after Me. 
But to Israel He saith, All day long I have 
stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient 
and gainsaying people" (Rom. x:20, 21, and 
Isaiah lxv:l-2). 

We are aware we are stating that, which is 
accepted by all true believers who read and 
study God's Word. It is not denied that after 
His own rejected Him, who is God manifested 
in the flesh, that He was preached to the Gen- 
tiles. By their fall salvation is come to the 



46 The Jewish Question. 

Gentiles, is generally believed throughout 
Christendom; but what is not known and 
little believed is the fact that salvation jbs 
come to the Gentiles, by their fall, in order 
to provoke them to jealousy. In this fact lies 
the argument that God has not cast away His 
people; for if He had cast Israel away, why 
should He wish to provoke them to jealousy? 
The fact that His aim is to provoke His earth- 
ly people to jealousy by having extended 
salvation to the Gentiles, they receiving bless- 
ings in Christ, is sufficient evidence that He 
is still occupied with His people. 

Furthermore, we read in this chapter that 
the provoking to jealousy is with the view 
of the salvation of some of them (verse 14). 
Such is the statement of the Apostle himself. 
How fully it brings out once more "God hath 
not cast away His people." But has the 
divine purpose been realized ? Has there been 
from the sides of the Gentiles in possession 
of salvation, a provoking to jealousy for Is- 
rael ? Have the Jews learned through Chris- 
tianity that the Gentiles are in possession of 
the better things, which they and their 
fathers rejected ? Alas ! History gives a far 
different picture, even up to the present time. 
In the first night vision of Zechariah* the 

*See our "Studies in Zechariah." 



"To Provoke Them To Jealousy," 47 

accusation is prominent, "They (the Gentiles) 
have helped forward their (Israel's) afflic- 
tion." So it has been for centuries; so it is 
in the twentieth century. Instead of provok- 
ing the Jews to jealousy, that some of them 
might be saved, the Gentiles have hated and 
bitterly persecuted the Jews, and by their un- 
christian, yea inhuman, cruel and wicked 
treatment of the Jews, the Jews instead of 
being moved to jealousy, have become more 
hardened and their afflictions have been in- 
creased. The sin against Israel is the sin of 
the Gentiles, it will be the sin for which they 
will be judged by Him, who is not only King 
of kings, but also the King of the Jews (Matt, 
xxv :31; Joel iii:l-3). 

The writer has spoken sometimes the Word 
to hundreds of Jews. More than once he was 
interrupted to answer questions put to him 
concerning the Messiahship of Jesus of Na- 
zareth. He never had any difficulty in 
answering Jewish arguments against our 
Lord. But he had to hang his head in shame 
when some intelligent Hebrew spoke of the 
awful persecutions his people passed through 
in the past and when he pointed out the 
barbaric treatment they receive in Russia, 
Austria and other so-called "Christian" coun- 
tries. Once an aged Jew declared, "The Mes- 



48 The Jewish Question. 

siah whose followers can do such things and 
hate us cannot be our Messiah." 

And yet it is not universally thus. In 
these last days many Christian believers 
have a loving and prayerful interest in Is- 
rael and realize the debt they owe to the Jew. 
More prayer is made, we believe, for Israel 
and for the peace of Jerusalem, than has been 
made since the days of the Apostles. And 
there is no doubt that "some of them" are 
being saved. 

We shall find with the next verse the con- 
nection which exists between the fact that 
salvation came by their fall to the Gentiles, 
and the fact that a time is coming when Is- 
rael will be received; the time of their full- 
ness. It is one of the strongest arguments 
for Israel's Hope and calling which follows. 

In conclusion of our meditation on this 
verse let us remember that while salvation 
has come to the Gentiles by their fall, that 
salvation as it is offered now is not continu- 
ally to be offered to the world. The accepta- 
ble year of the Lord, having lasted for near- 
ly two thousand years, is far spent, another 
day is coming f 



Their Reception — Life from the 
Dead. 

CHAPTER VI. 

We reach now a most important climax in 
this chapter. First the Holy Spirit pointed 
us to the Apostle Paul as a pattern of what 
God in His rich mercy will yet do for the 
people, whom He hath not cast away. Then 
we learned that Israel's apostasy is neither 
complete nor final, and in our last meditation 
the fact was before us that God permitted 
His people to fall, to be set aside for a time, 
to bring, by their fall, salvation to the Gen- 
tiles, with the purpose in view "to provoke 
them to jealousy." 

We are now led on in the wonderful ways 
of God. "But if their fall be the world's 
wealth, and their loss the wealth of the na- 
tions, how much more their fulness? For I 
speak to you, nations, inasmuch as I am 
Apostle of the nations, I glorify my ministry ; 
if by any means I shall provoke to jealousy 
them which are my flesh, and shall save some 
from among them. For if their casting away 
be the world's reconciliation, what their re- 



50 The Jewish Question. 

ception, but life from the dead?" (verses 
12-15). 

Let us notice that the apostle here glorifies 
his ministry as apostle of the nations. The 
whole epistle was addressed to the Romans* 
mostly believers from the Gentiles, living in 
Rome, later to become the prison of Paul and 
at last the seat of Christianity in its apostate 
and corrupt form. But here the apostle 
makes still more prominent that his word is 
meant for those of the Gentiles. He says: 
"I speak to you the nations." We have, 
therefore, before us a message, which is of 
special value and importance to Gentiles. We 
have learned before that Israel's disobedience 
and fall brought salvation to the Gentiles. 

Thus their fall was the wealth of the 
world, their loss the wealth of the nations 
(or Gentiles) and their casting away the 
world's reconciliation. But this is not all. 
All this is far from fulfilling that gracious 
promise made to the father of the nation, 
Abraham, when God told him "in thy seed 
all the nations of the earth shall be blest." 
Israel's fall, the means in God's purpose to 
bring salvation to the Gentiles, is not the 
final thing and the blessing the Gentiles re- 
ceived by their fall is not the fullest blessing 
which God has in store for the nations of 



Their Reception — Life From The Dead. 51 

the world. There is a "much more" in Romans 
xi. In turning to the fifth chapter of this 
epistle we find the same two significant words 
used by way of contrast. There it is the 
"much more" of salvation. "For if, when 
we were enemies we were reconciled to God 
by the death of His Son, much more, being 
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" 
(Rom. v:10). Here it is the "much more" 
of dispensational blessing. 

The Gospel is preached now to the Gentiles 
for one great purpose. This purpose is not 
the conversion of the world, but it is to take 
out of them a people for His name. (Acts 
xv:14). This people taken out or called out, 
form the church (ecclesia), the body of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, to which every true be- 
liever belongs. It is, like the human body, 
composed of so many members, a number, 
known to God alone. This body will be com- 
plete some day and then the preaching of the 
Gospel of grace must of necessity cease, and 
the offer of salvation in its present form and 
under present conditions as made to the Gen- 
tiles, will come to an end. 

It is all wrong to speak of world conversion 
in this age, in which the church of the Lord 
Jesus Christ is being called. There is abso- 
lutely not a single promise in the Gospels, nor 



52 The Jewish Question. 

in the epistles, nor in any part of the Newj 
Testament which assures us of world con- 
version, or gives us a right to pray for, or; 
expect the conversion of the world by present 1 
agencies through the church. The zvorld will 
be converted. Nations will walk in the light of 
God, and the knowledge of the glory of the 
Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover 
the sea, the curse of sin will be removed, na- 
tions will learn war no more, righteousness 
and peace shall kiss each other; all this and 
scores of other blessings will literally come 
to pass. But all these promises and predic- 
tions about subdued nations and a kingdom of 
peace extending from sea to sea are found ex- 
clusively in the Old Testament Scriptures and 
not in the New. 

It is a sad fact that Christendom has erred 
in the interpretation of these predictions and 
turned the time and manner of their fulfill- 
ment upside down. In this error lies the 
cause of all the present day confusion and aposta- 
sy of the professing church. Israel, which is so 
prominent on the pages of the Old Testament 
in connection with these great blessings, has 
been interpreted to mean "the church." The 
time in which the blessings are to be realized 
to be the age now, instead of the age which 
is to come. The declarations of the Lord 



Their Reception — Life From The Dead. 53 

about this age and its ending, like the days 
of Noah and Lot, have been completely ignor- 
ed, and the same has been done with the 
statements of the Apostles in the epistles. 
Nearly the whole of Christendom attends to 
Israel's earthly calling and, attempting to do 
a work which God never means to have done 
in this age, fails most shamefully in it. As 
one has said, "The spiritualizing of Israel's 
promises has been the carnalizing of the 
church." 

If we turn to the Old Testament we find, 
as we have shown in our "Harmony of the 
Prophetic Word," everything revealed in 
perfect order. The last event seen in Old 
Testament prophecy is always the kingdom 
come, the nations blest and under the rule of 
Jehovah ; peace on earth and the deliverance 
of groaning creation. 

This great and last event of Old Testament 
prophecy, a subdued earth ruled over by the 
King of Righteousness and Peace, is preceded 
by the judgments of God executed in the 
earth and above all by the spiritual and na- 
tional restoration of His ancient people, Is- 
rael. The fullest blessing for nations and for 
the earth is altogether conditioned by the 
conversion of Israel, to become head of the 
nations, and possessing her God-given in- 



54 The Jewish Question. 

heritance. Israel converted and restored will 
result in the conversion of the nations of the 
earth. But Israel's conversion and restora- 
tion to the land will not be till the second 
coming of the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus 
Christ, in great power and glory. Every- 
where in the Old Testament we find first of 
all the visible manifestation of the Lord of 
Glory, and at the time of His personal, visible 
and glorious manifestation, His earthly 
people are delivered and Jerusalem is re- 
stored. We have, then, three great events 
in Old Testament prophecy, still future: 

1. The personal, visible and glorious mani- 
festation of the Lord from heaven. This 
Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ. 

2. The conversion and national restoration 
of Israel. 

3. The result of Israel's conversion and 
restoration, nations blest and going to Jeru- 
salem to worship the Lord of Hosts, etc. 

This order cannot be reversed. It is the 
divine program. If we were to prove the 
above statements we could go through every 
prophetic book of the Old Testament and to 
the Psalms and point out hundreds of pas- 
sages, where this is clearly taught. Read, as 
striking proofs, Zechariah ii:6-13; Isaiah 
lix:20-21, and read the Ix chapter of Isaiah. 



Their Reception — Life From The Dead. 55 

"The gifts and calling of God are without 
repentance," we find later in our chapter. He 
has undertaken to bless nations and the earth 
through Israel, His earthly people. When 
Israel failed and was disobedient, He had 
another gracious way to reveal. Salvation 
came to the Gentiles, to take out a people for 
His name. This is the work in the present 
age and that is a parenthesis. As soon as 
this is accomplished He resumes His work 
with Israel. 

And now we are able to understand the 
"much more" of dispensational truth. 

Israel is promised in the Old Testament 
Scriptures a fulness and a time when they 
shall be received. This fulness comes when 
the Lord comes in power and glory as the 
King. Now, if God brought blessing to the 
Gentiles by their fall, how much more will 
He bless the nations when their fulness 
comes. Through their fulness the whole 
world will receive the fullest blessing, bless- 
ings minutely given in the Old Testament and 
literally to be fulfilled. 

But there is a phrase in the passage before 
us which claims our special attention. "Their 
reception shall be life from the dead." What 
does it mean, "life from the dead?" It is 
strange that this phrase should be inter- 



56 The Jewish Question. 

preted as meaning a physical resurrection. 
Upon this passage, as well as the passage 
"all Israel shall be saved," and a few others, 
has been founded the evil doctrine, unscrip- 
tural throughout, that all Jews who have 
lived will be raised from the dead, saved and 
unsaved, and they all will be brought back 
to the land to enjoy the blessings of the mil- 
lennial kingdom. It is a larger Jewish Hope 
— a Jewish restitution of all things and con- 
sequently those who hold this doctrine are 
forced to believe also in a restitution of all 
things for Gentiles. When we reach the fact 
that "all Israel shall be saved" we expect to 
follow this more fully. 

Physical resurrection is here not at all in 
view. Nor is it in many passages in the Old 
Testament, where physical resurrection is 
simply used as a type of a great change. It 
is so in the New Testament. Of the prodigal 
it is said "for this my son was dead and is 
come to life." These literalists could not 
claim that he was physically dead. The 
vision of the valley full of dry bones is gen- 
erally used by these men who teach a 
restitution by resurrection. But the vision is 
a vision to describe vividly the national resur- 
rection of Israel and not a physical one. The 
dry bones are the whole house of Israel (Ez. 



Their Reception — Life From The Dead. 57 

xxxvii:12) ; but are these dry bones literally 
dry bones or are they used to typify Israel's 
death spiritually and nationally ? If they are 
literally dry bones how could they say : "Our 
bones are dried and our hope is lost ; we are 
cut off for our parts ?" Surely, literal dry 
bones have no mouth to speak. If we read 
that they are in graves and the Lord will open 
their graves, it means that He is bringing His 
people back from their graves among the na- 
tions, where they are buried nationally. 
Numerous other passages could be cited in 
which physical resurrection is used to typify 
the spiritual and national revival of Israel. 

"Life from the dead" does not mean a 
literal resurrection. It has a double mean- 
ing. First it means when their reception 
comes it will be for them, spiritually and na- 
tionally, life; they will live spiritually and 
as a nation. 

In the second place the term means that 
the result of Israel's reception, coming into 
the place of blessing, will be for the world at 
large "life from the dead." This is identical 
with the term, which the Lord uses in Mat- 
thew xix:28, "the regeneration'' it will be a 
great change which takes place, in resurrec- 
tion power. 

There is one book which illustrates very 



58 The Jewish Question. 

blessedly the passage before us. It is the 
book so much belittled and ridiculed in our 
day, the Book of Jonah. 

Our Lord said to the Pharisees, who de- 
manded a sign from Him that no sign would 
be given them but the sign of the prophet 
Jonas. (Matt, xii :38.) He then spoke of His 
coming resurrection foreshadowed by Jonah's 
experience. No doubt the proud and learned 
Pharisees turned away from Him; and with 
a smile the rationalistic Sadducee may have 
said, "What nonsense, Jonah never lived, it is 
all a myth, there is no resurrection." Oh, 
the adulterous generation ! Modern Pharisee- 
ism and Sadduceeism, Higher Critics, etc., are 
likewise an adulterous generation. They tell 
us what a beautiful book the book of Jonah 
is, what sublime lessons it teaches. But did 
Jonah ever live? Of course not, they say — 
he never lived, his life is a myth — how could 
a fish swallow a man? etc. Awful conse- 
quences! The Lord Jesus used the deliver- 
ance of Jonah as a type of His blessed resur- 
rection, the foundation of our holy faith. If 
He did not know that Jonah lived, if He used 
a myth to typify His resurrection — well, 
then, His resurrection may not have been a 
real one, and how could He be the Son of 
God? 



Their Reception — Life From The Dead, 59 

Jonah's life is in different respects typical 
of Christ, but it has still another meaning 
which makes known the divine wisdom and 
inspiration. The life of nearly every servant 
of God in the Old Testament has a twofold 
typical application — the one, Christ, the Mes- 
siah, and the other, Israel, the chosen people 
of God. Follow out this thought and apply 
it to Joseph, David, Daniel, the prophets, etc. 
Jonah is a type of Israel. The whole history 
of the seed of Abraham, past, present, and 
future, is contained in a nutshell in that book. 

1. Jonah's call. He is sent by Jehovah to 
preach to Nineveh. He knows God while 
Nineveh is in darkness. So God prepared 
Himself Israel a nation to show forth His 
praises. Salvation is of the Jews. Through 
them He desires to make known His loving 
kindness and His redemption. In the seed of 
Abraham all the nations of the earth are to 
receive blessing. These are God's gifts and 
calling. They are without repentance (Rom. 
xi:29). 

2. Jonah is disobedient. He turns his back 
upon God and flees from His face. He goes 
on board of a merchantman. He goes in the 
opposite direction. So Israel became an 
apostate people, and the Jew turns merchant. 
Forsook God and lightly esteemed the rock 



60 The Jewish Question. 

of his salvation. Like Jonah, disobedient to 
the heavenly vision, instead of being a bless- 
ing becomes a curse among the nations. 

3. Trouble soon comes upon Jonah, the dis- 
obedient servant of God. The storm of dis- 
aster tosses his ship upon the wild waves of 
the angry sea. Everything is against him 
because he rebelled against God. Thus with 
the Jews. Misfortune after misfortune, 
storm after storm has broken over them since 
they rejected God and their King Messiah. 
They are tossed about by the nations. The 
sea always represents nations in the Word. 

4. Jonah does not deny his God and his 
nationality. He said, "I am a Hebrew and I 
fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which has 
made the sea and the dry land." So the Jew 
in his apostasy still professes to be a believer 
in God, fears His name and does not deny that 
he is a Jew. 

5. Jonah is cast overboard. He is given 
up to the angry waves. He is seen struggling 
in the waves. Typical of the Jew being cast 
away, though not forever. 

6. The men in Jonah's ship when they saw 
that as soon as Jonah was in the water the 
waters calmed down, these men, who were all 
heathen, feared the Lord exceedingly, and 
offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made 



Their Reception — Life From The Dead. 61 

vows. What a wonderful illustration of the 
very statement in this epistle: "By their 
fall salvation has come to the Gentiles/' The 
Gentiles have received salvation when the 
Jew was set aside nationally. 

7. Jonah is miraculously preserved in the 
belly of a sea monster. (There is nothing in 
the Hebrew to show that it was a whale.) 
He is to have his abode there for three days 
and three nights. He does not lose his life 
and existence, but he is put into a grave and 
is there miraculously preserved. The Jew is 
likewise in his grave among the nations, na- 
tionally dead, but still God keeps the Jew as 
He did Jonah. The Jew is God's standing 
miracle. No infidel can explain away the Jew 
and his miraculous existence. 

8. Jonah was not digested by the fish. He 
remained there undigested. The nations 
have not digested the Jews. This people 
shall dwell alone and not be reckoned among 
the nations. The Jew is still a Jew. As- 
similation has failed. 

9. Jonah at the end of the appointed time 
commenced to repent in his grave. He cried 
to God. He wished himself back to His holy 
temple, and he finished his prayer with the 
believing shout, "Salvation is of the Lord." 
The Jews will also repent. There are un-* 



62 The Jewish Question. 

mistakable signs of a changed attitude of the 
Jew noticeable. Still, before that great na- 
tional repentance comes, there will be like- 
wise first a great tribulation. Like Jonah 
many are to-day desiring for His holy temple, 
and they are getting ready to return to the 
land. At last they will acknowledge that 
salvation is of the Lord, and welcome their 
King with the shout "Blessed is He that 
cometh in the name of the Lord." 

10. God made the fish vomit out Jonah. He 
that scattered Israel will gather them again. 
They will be brought back to the land and 
restored. They will build the waste places, 
the desolations of many generations. The 
Word of God has hundreds of promises which 
belong to literal Israel and speak of a literal 
restoration. If we do not believe that, we 
might as well close the Bible and become 
Higher Critics, unbelievers, etc. 

11. Jonah is sent the second time, and he 
follows the command. So Israel is yet to ful- 
fill its grandest mission. Their King, our 
coming Lord, will commission them again and 
send them forth to proclaim His salvation. 
Israel will then follow obediently. 

12. The whole city of Nineveh repented 
after hearing the apostate, the punished, and 
the restored Jew preach. A whole* city was 



Their Reception — Life From The Dead. 63 

swept by a revival. The masses were saved. 
Now is the time for the salvation of indi- 
viduals. There is no such thing at this 
present time as saving the masses or con- 
verting the world. The masses will be saved 
and the world converted through the preach- 
ing of the Jews when they are converted and 
restored to the land and Jesus is crowned as 
their King and sits upon the throne of His 
Father David. 

This then illustrates, at least in part and 
in a faint way, what their reception is and 
means, "Life from the dead." 



The Parable of the Olive Tree# 

CHAPTER VII. 

In the next place a parable is given to de- 
clare Israel's position and hope as well as the 
relationship and responsibility of the Gen- 
tiles. In this portion of our chapter we find 
some very solemn truths for Gentiles, and, 
indeed, as we advance towards the end of 
this great dispensational chapter, the Hope 
of Israel shines brighter till we reach the 
declaration, that the Redeemer shall come out 
of Sion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 

"Now, if the first fruits be holy, the lump 
also; and if the root be holy, the branches 
also. Now if some of the branches have been 
broken out, and thou, being a wild olive tree, 
hast been graffed in amongst them, and hast 
become a fellow partaker of the root and fat- 
ness of the olive tree, boast not against the 
branches; but if thou boast, it is not that 
thou barest the root, but the root thee. Thou 
wilt say, The branches have been broken out 
in order that I might be graffed in. Right : 
they have been broken out through unbelief, 



The Parable of The Olive Tree. 65 

and thou standest through faith. Be n*t 
highminded, but fear; if God indeed has not 
spared the natural branches ; lest it might be 
He spare not thee. Behold then the goodness 
and severity of God: upon them who have 
fallen, severity, upon thee, goodness of God, 
if thou abide in goodness, otherwise thou also 
wilt be cut away. And they, too, if they 
abide not in unbelief, shall be graffed in; for 
God is able to graff them in again. For if 
thou hast been cut out of the olive tree, wild 
by nature, and, contrary to nature, hast been 
graffed into the good olive tree, how much 
more shall those, which are the natural 
branches be graffed into their own olive 
tree?" (verses 16-24). 

The parable is concerning a good and a wild 
olive tree, branches which were broken off 
and branches which were graffed in and 
branches which are threatened with being cut 
away, and the broken off ones to be graffed 
in again. Exhortations and solemn warnings 
are by this parable given and important 
dispensational teachings cluster around it. 

Before we ascertain the meaning of the 
olive tree, we briefly touch on the sentence 
"now, if the firstfruit be holy, the lump also." 
The firstfruit does not mean anything outside 
of Israel. Some Christians in these days talk 



66 The Jewish Question. 

about firstfruit, as if in the body of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, the church, there is a select 
number, which through self-denial, service 
and suffering obtains a special place and 
enters into the God-given inheritance first. 
When we read in Romans viii of having the 
firstfruits of the Spirit, it applies to all true 
believers. In James i:18, "that we should 
be a certain firstfruits of his creatures," it 
refers to Christian believers, who were Is- 
raelites by nature, and in Revel. xiv:4, "those 
who have been bought from men as firstfruits 
to God and to the Lamb," does not mean a 
part of the church, but the Jewish remnant. 
Here in Romans xi for the fuller under- 
standing of the firstfruit, which is holy, and 
the lump, Num. xv: 19-21 and Leviticus 
xxiii: 15-17 have to be taken into considera- 
tion. We cannot follow this in detail, but 
rather turn to the main argument of the pas- 
sage before us. The good olive tree with a 
root and branches must be considered first. 
What does this olive tree represent? It is a 
type of Israel. God hath taken trees as types 
of His earthly people, because trees are 
rooted in the earth and extend their branches 
upward towards heaven and they yield fruit, 
for which He also looks in His professing 
people. Jotham's parable in Judges ix:7-15 



The Parable of The Olive Tree. 67 

has a dispensational aspect. The trees men- 
tioned called to be king over the other trees 
are types of Israel and the bramble is typical 
of the Gentiles. The olive tree, the figtree 
and the vine, spoken of for the first time 
together in this passage, are seen in different 
parts of the Scripture as representing Israel. 
The vineyard so carefully kept, in Isaiah v, 
and the vine yielding wild grapes, applies to 
this people. "Thou has brought a vine out of 
Egypt; thou hast cast out the nations, and 
planted it. . . Why hast thou broken down her 
hedges, so that all which pass by the way do 
pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth 
waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth 
devour it" (Psalm lxxx:8-14). "Yet I planted 
thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how 
then art thou turned into the degenerate 
plant of a strange vine unto me?" (Jerem. 
ii:21). 

Of the figtree as a type of Israel, we read 
in the New Testament. The parable in Luke 
xiii:7-9 meant primarily Israel. The Lord 
came and sought fruit for three years. When 
no fruit was found the judgment sentence 
was carried out, it was cut down, but the root 
remained. In Matthew xxi:19 there is the 
record of a symbolical action of the Lord. 
"And when He saw a figtree in the way, He 



68 The Jewish Question. 

came to it, and found nothing thereon, but 
leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit 
grow on thee henceforward forever. And 
presently the figtree withered away." And 
the withering away, the tree becoming dead 
in its outward appearance, stands for the 
cutting off of the nation during this age. 

But again the Lord said "Now learn a 
parable of the figtree; when his branch is 
yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know 
that the summer is nigh" (Matt. xxiv:32). 
The figtree will bud again. The olive tree is 
not only mentioned here, but we read of it in 
Jeremiah xi :16 : "The Lord called thy name 
a green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit: 
with the noise of a great tumult he hath 
kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it 
have broken." The olive tree typifies Israel 
in covenant relation with God. The olive tree 
stands for the Abrahamic covenant. The 
olive tree is evergreen. And so that covenant 
is lasting and forever, and changes not by 
changing seasons. Israel's disobedience and 
faithlessness does not annul it. 

A root is mentioned and that root is said 
to be holy (separated). The root is the one 
with whom the covenant was made, Abra- 
ham. But not alone he, but the root 
is threefold, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; 



The Parable of The Olive Tree. 69 

the promise is repeated to each. In Exodus 
iii :15 we read how God names Himself in con- 
nection with the children of Israel. "Thus 
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, 
The Lord God of your fathers, the God of 
Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of 
Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this is my 
name forever, and this is my memorial unto 
all generations." Why should He name Him- 
self thus? Because in this root, Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob, God hath revealed Himself as 
Father in Abraham, as God the Son in Isaac, 
and in overcoming the flesh and in guidance, 
as God the Holy Spirit in Jacob. And this 
root is holy, separated; so are the branches, 
that which springs out of the root. God's 
purpose with Israel is, to have in them a 
separated, holy people. The root vouches for 
the final outcome. As wonderful as the be- 
ginning of that people has been in that sepa- 
rated One, so wonderful, even more so, is 
their future. 

On account of unbelief some of the 
branches were broken off. They lay on the 
ground, separated from the root, without life. 

A wild olive tree is seen next in the para- 
ble and the wild olive tree is graffed in 
amongst the branches and becomes a par- 
taker of the root and of the fatness of the 



70 The Jewish Question. 

olive tree. In the wild olive tree we have a 
picture of the Gentiles. It is, however, of the 
greatest importance that we see that it is not 
the true church, which is represented by the 
wild olive tree. This is often erroneously 
stated. Later we find the warning, and more 
than a warning, the fact that the wild olive 
tree branches are to be cut away, broken off, 
removed from the root, upon which they were 
graffed. This can never be true of the indi- 
vidual member of the body of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, nor of the true church as a whole. It 
is true that all believers are fellow partakers 
of the olive tree, and they stand by faith. 
"Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers 
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the 
saints and of the household of God; and are 
built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the 
chief cornerstone" (Eph. ii:19-20). The 
great mystery revealed is, "that the Gentiles 
should be f ellowheirs, and of the same body, 
and partakes of His promise in Christ by the 
Gospel." But to say that the wild olive tree 
represents the true church graffed in, would 
be far from the truth. Gentiles are 
represented by it, all who are privileged to 
hear and come under the influence of that 
which belonged to Israel. When the natural 



The Parable of The Olive Tree. 71 

branches were broken off, God put the Gen- 
tiles upon the ground of responsibility, where 
Israel as a nation stood, and then gives the 
Gentiles a chance to partake of the root and 
fatness of the olive tree. The natural 
branches are Israel and the branches graffed 
in contrary to nature are the Gentiles. The 
wild olive tree represents the same "king- 
dom of heaven" as seen in its mystery form 
in the Gospel of Matthew in the seven para- 
bles (chapter xiii). As we hold this clearly 
in our mind, the meaning of all that is before 
us becomes plain. 

The wild olive tree, or as we may say just 
as well, Christendom, is now solemnly addres- 
sed and warned in this parable. It is still, 
"I speak to you, Gentiles." 

First, there is the warning, "Boast not 
against the branches." Then an answer is 
heard from the side of the wild olive tree. 
"Thou wilt say then, The branches have been 
broken out in order that I might be grafted 
in." To which the Holy Spirit answers: 
"Right! They have been broken off through 
unbelief, and thou standest through faith. 
Be not highminded, but fear; if God has not 
spared the natural branches; lest it might 
be, He spare not thee." 

This is a most striking and solemn warning 



72 The Jewish Question. 

as well as a prophecy. We remember once 
more, that the epistle was sent to Rome and 
that from Rome proceeded later all the cor- 
ruption, that leaven, which has leavened the 
whole lump. If the warning here had been 
heeded, Christendom, with its evil doctrines 
and practices, its highmindedness, unbelief, 
apostasy and corruption would have been an 
impossibility. But the very thing against 
which the Holy Spirit warns has come to 
pass. The Gentiles, having partaken of the 
covenant blessings of Israel, declare with a 
boasting spirit, "The branches were broken 
off that I might be graffed in," and boast 
against the branches. Instead of believing 
God's revealed purposes concerning the Jews, 
the Gentiles and the church of God, Christen- 
dom ignores them, and in a spirit of high- 
mindedness and unbelief, boasts of being an 
earthly and permanent institution, called to 
convert and civilize the world. Here is the 
root of all the confusion in Roman, Greek and 
Protestant Christendom, with its numerous 
divisions. Christendom having forgotten, or 
misunderstanding God's purposes concerning 
Israel, has become a boasting, worldly organ- 
ization, calling itself "Israel" and laying 
claim to promises which are Israel's in the 
age to come. Then the Gentiles have turned 



The Parable of The Olive Tree. 73 

against the Jews ; having no faith that they 
are "still beloved for the Father's sake," and 
that God "hath not cast away His people." 
They have persecuted them and do so to the 
end of this age. 

This boasting of the wild olive tree is seen 
in its completeness in the last part of the 
third chapter of Revelation. There we have 
the last phase, and the saddest one of pro- 
fessing Christendom, Laodicea. It is boast- 
ing in riches, increase of goods. Laodicea 
boasts of increase in institutions, millions to 
extend educational work and philanthropic 
schemes to convert the world, but it is the 
usurpation of Israel's place and calling. 

The warning is, of course, unheeded. God 
did not spare the natural branches, He will 
not spare the branches which were graffed 
in. And stronger still, He says: "Behold, 
then, the goodness and severity of God; 
upon them who have fallen, severity; upon 
thee, goodness of God, if thou shalt abide in 
goodness, otherwise thou shalt also be cut 
off." How solemn these words are! Did 
Gentile Christendom abide in the goodness of 
God? Far from it! It has dishonored Him 
and His Word and has made and is 
a greater failure than the Jews did. The un- 
belief manifested in Christendom, especially 



74 The Jewish Question. 

in our day, is indeed greater than the unbelief 
of Israel ever was. 

"Thou also shalt be cut off." This is the 
sentence which will be executed upon the 
wild olive tree. It corresponds to the word 
Laodicea: "So, then, because thou art luke- 
warm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew 
thee out of my mouth." And this judgment 
is not far away. The apostasy is developing 
rapidly. God will not permit forever His 
Holy Word to be trampled upon by Gentiles 
nor will He stand the ever increasing rejec- 
tion of the Son of His love, the denial of His 
Deity and Lordship. "Thou also shalt be 
cut off!" How soon this may come to pass! 
The true church, composed of all believers 
will be taken into glory and then there re- 
mains that which boasts and is highminded 
and upon this professing Christendom the 
judgment will fall at last. 

But this is not all. We reach the climax in 
this wonderful parable. "And they, too, if 
they abide not in unbelief, shall be graffed 
in; for God is able again to graff them in. 
For if thou hast been cut out of the olive tree, 
wild by nature, and contrary to nature, hast 
been graffed into the good olive tree, how 
much more shall they, which are the natural 



The Parable of The Olive Tree. 75 

branches, be graffed into their own olive 
tree." 

From this we learn two facts. The first 
fact, God will graff these broken off branches 
in again; He will put them back upon their 
own olive tree. And this fact brings us back 
to the question, "Hath God cast away His 
people ?" Surely He has not. The olive tree, 
the covenant promises to Israel is as green 
as the olive tree; all that happened is that 
branches, on account of unbelief, were 
broken off. The hand which broke them off, 
and which took the wild olive tree and gave 
the wild olive tree, the Gentiles, a chance, 
that hand will take these branches and put 
them back. Here again it is "life from the 
dead," that which was cut off is put back; it 
means the restoration of Israel. 

The second fact is a still more important 
one. It gives us the order in which these 
events will come to pass. First, the wild 
olive tree, graffed in, fails, then the wild olive 
tree branches are cut off, and in the third 
place broken off branches, Israel, will be put 
back upon their own good olive tree. To-day 
we witness the apostasy of Gentile Chris- 
tendom. The next event will be the removal 
from earth of the true church (1 Thessal. 
iv: 16-18) and upon that follows the cutting 



76 



The Jewish Question. 



off of that which is only an empty profession, 
judgment upon apostate Christendom, and 
this is followed by God receiving Israel back. 
This is the teaching of the parable, Israel 
shall be received back. That the broken off 
branches do not mean individuals is clear. 
How strange that men should teach, they 
mean individuals which were cut off, and that 
all unbelieving Jews, of all generations which 
ever existed, will be raised from their 
graves and brought back to the land to enjoy 
there all blessings promised to the faithful 
and believing remnant. 

The next and last demonstration that God 
hath not cast away His people will lead us 
further in the order of events, when and 
how all Israel is to be saved. 



A Mystery Made Known* 

CHAPTER VID. 

We have reached the final answer to the 
question : "Hath God cast away His people." 
As the seventh and last proof of Israel's glori- 
ous future, it is the completest of all. "For 
I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, 
of this mystery, that ye be not wise in your 
own conceits, that blindness in part has hap- 
pened to Israel, until the fulness of the na- 
tions has come; and so all Israel shall be 
saved. According as it is written, The De- 
liverer shall come out of Sion ; He shall turn 
away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is 
the covenant from me to them, when I shall 
take away their sins" (verses 25-27) . These 
words are not addressed to Gentiles, and no 
longer does the apostle say, "I speak to you, 
Gentiles," but they are addressed to "Breth- 
ren," that is, true believers. It has the same 
meaning here as in Romans xii :1. He is now 
going to make known a secret, a mystery, 
which by revelation was made known to him 
and of which he does not want his brethren 



78 The Jewish Question. 

to be ignorant. It is known to every reader 
of the Word of God that the word "mystery" 
and the revelation of mysteries hid in former 
ages is found exclusively in the Pauline 
epistles. Our Lord in Matthew xiii, that 
great dispensational chapter, speaks of 
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven 
(verse 11). The seven parables contain 
mysteries concerning the present Christian 
age. In the epistles given by the Holy Spirit 
through the Apostle Paul we find the full 
revelation of these secret things, hid in 
former ages, and now made known. What 
are these mysteries in the epistles of Paul? 
We can count seven. "And without con- 
troversy great is the mystery of godliness; 
God was manifested in the flesh, justified in 
the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the 
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received 
up into glory" (1 Tim. iii:16). This is the 
mystery of the blessed Gospel itself in all its 
fulness. In Colossians i:26-27, we have a 
second mystery: " . . . . the riches of the 
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, 
which is, Christ in you the hope of glory." 
Here the blessed union of Christ and the be- 
liever is made known. In Ephesians iii and v 
we have a third and fourth secret. These are 
concerning the church, which is both His 



A Mystery Made Known. 79 

body and His bride. Then in 1 Corinthians 
xv:51 is a fifth mystery: "Behold, I show 
you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but 
we shall all be changed." It is the blessed 
secret about the coming of the Lord for the 
gathering of His saints, more fully made 
known in 1 Thess. iv:16, 17. In 2 Thess. ii 
is the mystery concerning the iniquity and 
the final Antichrist, and here in Romans xi 
it is the mystery of Israel. 

These secret things made known through 
Paul in these epistles are of the greatest im- 
portance. Ignorance in these is deplorable; 
the true Christian position, calling and 
privileges, as well as what the church is and 
the destiny of the church, cannot be grasped 
without a knowledge of these Pauline mys- 
teries. 

Not alone does Paul want the brethren to 
know the mystery here, that they may not be 
ignorant, but he adds "that ye may not be 
wise in your own conceits." This would be 
a very suitable word to put over Christendom, 
"they are wise in their own conceits." It 
characterizes the present day confusion and 
falling away about us. And why is the pro- 
fessing church wise in her own conceit ? The 
answer is evident, because the professing 
church ignores the mysteries made known. 



80 The Jewish Question. 

What a change we would see all about us if 
the mystery of the church, what the church 
is, the one body, were known. If the mystery 
were believed about the union of the believer 
with Christ, the believer's completeness in 
Him, how different all would be. Alas ! God's 
secrets are ignored and religious man rather 
follows traditions and great men, and this is 
why Christendom is wise in its own conceits. 
And what keeps us humble ? What keeps us 
from following our own thoughts and ima- 
ginations and from being wise in our own 
conceits? Certainly only our complete sub- 
mission to that which God has revealed. 

What then is the mystery here, which is 
made known about Israel? It is twofold. 
First, Israel's blindness is only in part and, 
Israel's blindness has a limit, it will last up 
to a certain time. So God hath not cast away 
His people ; a time is coming when the partial 
blindness of Israel will cease. 

That blindness in part has happened to 
Israel, we have seen in the parable of the 
olive tree, where we learned that some of the 
branches were broken off. But when that 
blindness is to be removed, we have not yet 
discovered in our chapter. Here is some- 
thing altogether new. In the Old Testament 
Scriptures we read much about Israel's ju- 



A Mystery Made Known. 81 

dicial blindness, the judgments to fall upon 
them as a nation, and their future exaltation 
and blessing. But nowhere do we find definite 
information when the great event of Israel's 
reception will take place. 

When our Lord, before His ascension, was 
asked by His disciples, "Lord, wilt thou at 
this time restore again the kingdom of Is- 
rael?" He answered, "It is not for you to 
know the times or the seasons which the 
Father hath put in His own power" (Acts 
i:6, 7). Here in Romans xi:25 we have the 
secret made known and the time is given, 
when Israel's blindness will cease. "Until the 
fulness of the Gentiles be come in." The 
fulness of the nations is to come in first. This 
is the great work which has first to be accom- 
plished, the next great event, and as soon as 
this fulness of the Gentiles has been brought 
in, Israel's hour of salvation and blessing will 
come. 

The important question is next, What does 
this term "fulness of the Gentiles" mean ? It 
certainly does not mean what that unscholar- 
ly paraphrase of the New Testament, known 
and circulated under the name of "the twen- 
tieth century New Testament" has made of 
it. That inferior translation says : "that cal- 
lousness has to some extent come upon Is- 



82 The Jewish Question. 

rael, and will continue until all the rest of the 
world has been gathered in." These trans- 
lators who call themselves, "twenty eminent 
scholars" (they have chosen to hide their 
identity) tell us that the Greek word (plero- 
ma) means "all the rest of the world." What 
liberty these self-styled eminent scholars 
have taken with the Word of God ! Pleroma 
does not mean "all the rest of the world," but 
its true meaning is "the full number," or 
translated with one word "fulness." The 
full number of the Gentiles, or fulness of the 
Gentiles has to be brought in. 

This term must likewise to be distinguish- 
ed from "the times of the Gentiles," which 
are to be fulfilled. Thus we read Luke xxi :24, 
"Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gen- 
tiles, until the times of the Gentiles be ful- 
filled." Here, too, is an "until," that little 
word of hope and cheer for poor Israel. But 
the two terms, "times of the Gentiles" and 
"fulness of the Gentiles" are not identical. 

It is well that we see the difference at this 
time. The times of the Gentiles will end sud- 
denly. The times of the Gentiles began with 
Nebuchadnezzar, whose dream, divinely in- 
terpreted by Daniel (Dan. ii) is a prophecy 
about the Gentiles, and in that dream we read 
how the times of the Gentiles will end. The 



A Mystery Made Known. 83 

stone, smites the great image at its feet, the 
ten toes, that future ten kingdom division of 
the Roman empire. The stone which pul- 
verizes the image, is the second visible and 
glorious coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Then Jerusalem will be delivered and will no 
more be trodden down by the Gentiles, but 
become the city of a great king. 

Now, the fulness of the Gentiles is some- 
thing altogether different. This is an event, 
which occurs before the times of the Gentiles 
are fulfilled. After the fulness of the Gen- 
tiles has been brought in the times of the 
Gentiles will still go on till the sudden end, 
the great catastrophe, as seen from Daniel's 
prophecy. 

The fulness of the Gentiles means a certain 
number, a number known to God alone, called 
out from the nations to constitute the 
church; in other words, the fulness of the 
Gentiles is the completion of the true church. 
As soon as the church is complete as to num- 
bers, this fulness will be brought in, that is, 
into His own presence. A day is coming — 
and how soon it may be! — when the church 
is complete ; the last member has been added 
to the body and then that fulness is brought 
in. In Ephesians i:23, the church is called 
His body, the fulness (pleroma) of Him. An 



84 The Jewish Question. 

apostate "church" will be left behind amidst 
the so-called "Christian nations" and the 
Gentile age will end in its foretold tribulation 
and wrath. 

As soon then as the fulness of the Gen- 
tiles is brought in, the church, the body of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, complete, a change 
takes place with Israel. God begins to deal 
again with them in mercy and on a national 
basis. Thus we see in the book of Revelation 
after the removal of the church, that a 
remnant of Israel, 12,000 of each tribe is cal- 
led and sealed (Revel, vii.) This is a believ- 
ing remnant and the blindness is no longer 
upon them. And then, after the rapid ful- 
fillment of the great prophecies concerning 
the time of the end, Israel prominently in the 
foreground, the blessed and glorious moment 
comes at last, when all Israel is saved. And 
so all Israel shall be saved. The "so," the 
manner how they are being saved is given in 
the verse which follows: "According as it 
is written, The Deliverer shall come out of 
Sion; He shall turn away ungodliness from 
Jacob." 

But what have we to understand by "all Is- 
rael shall be saved?" Some, like Calvin, be- 
lieve that "all Israel" means the whole num- 
ber of saved from the very beginning and in- 



A Mystery Made Known. 85 

eludes Jews as well as Gentiles. This is 
wrong for it is not the question of Gentile 
salvation, but of Israel's salvation. Others 
teach that "all Israel" means literally all the 
Israelites who ever lived, the righteous as 
well as the unrighteous, the believing ones 
and the unbelievers, in one word that all Jews 
who ever lived, with perhaps a few exceptions, 
will be raised up at the time to which the 
above Scripture refers, and all will then be 
saved. This is a theory which might be cal- 
led "Jewish Universalism," for it is nothing 
less and of necessity must lead to a belief in 
the final salvation of all Gentiles. Indeed, 
the advocates of this theory of a universal 
Jewish salvation, hold the restitution of the 
Gentiles as well, that all unsaved, with the 
exception of a few wicked persons of a special 
class, will be raised from the dead at the be- 
ginning of the millennium and brought back 
to their former condition. A certain Henry 
Dunn is the modern advocate of this evil 
doctrine; it has become widespread through 
the "Millennial Dawn heresy" and alas! 
thousands of Christian people have accepted 
it. How such theories are read into the Word 
of God we learned but recently from a volume 
treating the Jewish question. Matthew xxiii : 
37-39 is used as an argument to show that 



86 The Jewish Question. 

"all Israel" includes the very people who re- 
jected the Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem 
and all will be raised from the dead to see 
Him coming again and then be saved. The 
following verse is quoted: "0 Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets and 
stoneth them that are sent unto her! how 
often would I have gathered thy children to- 
gether, as a hen gathers her chickens under 
her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your 
house is left unto you desolate, For I say 
unto ye, ye shall in no wise see me hence- 
forth, until ye shall say, Blessed is He that 
cometh in the name of the Lord." The argu- 
ment first states that when the Lord says, 
"your house is left unto you desolate," He 
meant, of course, the people who stood there, 
the generation which saw Him and rejected 
Him, the Lord of Glory. It is then claimed 
in the most rigid literalism we have ever 
seen in print, that when the Lord said, "Ye 
shall in no wise see me henceforth, until ye 
shall say," etc., that He meant that all those 
who stood there and saw Him for the last 
time in the temple, that all these individuals 
shall see Him coming again and welcome Him 
with "Blessed is He that cometh in the name 
of the Lord." According to this belief all 
these wicked Pharisees and chief priests who 



A Mystery Made Known. 87 

rejected the Lord wilfully, who accused Him 
of driving out demons by Beelzebub, as well 
as the mass of people who cried, "Crucify 
Him, Crucify Him!" will be raised from the 
dead and then see the Lord coming and be- 
lieve on Him and be saved. That such is not 
the teaching of the Word of God, nor the 
teaching of the Scripture quoted from Mat- 
thew, can easily be proven. The passage ap- 
pears only in the Gospel of Matthew, and this 
is the Gospel of the kingdom, the dispensa- 
tional Gospel. All has a Jewish national 
aspect. The words before us are addressed 
to "Jerusalem" and to the nation, and Jeru- 
salem and the nation will abide to the time 
when He comes again. At the time of His 
coming there will be a believing remnant wel- 
coming Him with the words He mentions, 
and these are a quotation from Psalm cxviii. 
The nation had rejected Him, but He looks to 
the time of His coming again, when others 
of the nation living in that day, shall wait 
for the heavens to open, and the cloud of 
glory to bring Him back. Indeed, these un- 
believing Jews, these Elders and Pharisees, 
if they believed not in the offer made to them 
after the Cross (and perhaps many did) have 
gone to their place and await the resurrection 
of the wicked and not the resurrection of the 



88 The Jewish Question. 

just. But there is a verse which completely 
settles such argumentation as the one we 
have mentioned. In Matthew xxi :43, "There- 
fore, say I unto you, The kingdom of God 
shall be taken from you, and given to a nation 
bringing forth the fruits thereof." The 
question is what nation does the Lord mean 
here? The nation in His day had rejected 
Him and the kingdom is to be taken away 
from the nation — another nation is to receive 
the kingdom. If the argument is right that 
"all Israel" is to be saved, that all Jews, the 
very Pharisees, who heard the Lord speaking, 
who hated Him with a Satanic hatred, are 
to be raised from the dead and then receive 
the kingdom, why did the Lord not say so in 
plain words and give them such a promise? 
Here He states most positively that the king- 
dom shall be taken from you, and it must 
mean that generation living, and He does not 
say a word that they ever will get it back. 
Another nation is to receive it. That other 
nation is not the church, for the church does 
not inherit Israel's earthly kingdom. The 
kingdom is Israel's, the other nation is the 
Israel of the future, that remnant of His 
people living in the day of His glorious mani- 
festation. 

We care not to follow other arguments 



A Mystery Made Known. 89 

which are advanced to defend so unscriptural 
a doctrine. These arguments are flimsy in- 
deed. "All Israel shall be saved" means the 
Israel living in that day, when the Lord is 
manifested in power and in glory. In the 
great tribulation, the time of Jacob's trouble, 
the whole nation will be sifted as never be- 
fore. 

"And it shall come to pass, that in all the 
land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall 
be cut off and die, but the third shall be left 
therein" (Zech. xiii:8, 9). 

"And I will purge out from among you the 
rebels, and them that transgress against me, 
I will bring them forth out of the country, 
where they sojourn and they shall not enter 
into the land of Israel and ye shall know that 
I am the Lord" (Ezekiel xx:38). What will 
these restitutionists do with a passage like 
this? 

In Matthew xxiv, in the prophecy of our 
Lord concerning the great tribulation, we 
read it likewise. As it was in the days of 
Noah, so shall it be again. Judgment came 
and overtook the ungodly but Noah and his 
house was saved. So will it be, "One shall 
be taken (in judgment) and the other left" 
in the earth (Matt. xxiv:37-41). Judgment 
and fire will sift the nation during that time 



90 The Jewish Question. 

of trouble. (Isaiah iv:4.) A remnant of 
the nation will pass through it all, while the 
ungodly who worshipped the false Messiah 
shall be swept away. It is this remnant 
which constitutes "all Israel," and which 
shall be saved. However, we must dis- 
tinguish this part of the nation saved in that 
day from the godly, believing remnant, which 
throughout the great tribulation, preaches 
the Gospel of the kingdom to the nations, 
the remnant, which is sealed, which suffers 
and overcomes. This remnant is clearly re- 
vealed throughout the prophetic Word. In 
Revelation xii we have the woman, who flees 
into the wilderness and is nourished there 
for a time, times and half a time (3^ years), 
during the great tribulation ; this is the part 
of the nation Israel, which is preserved. But 
at the close of the chapter we read, "And the 
dragon was wroth with the woman, and went 
to make war with the remnant of her seed, 
which keeps the commandments of God and 
have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Revel. 
xii:17). The remnant here is the believing, 
witnessing remnant. 

And now the manner of their salvation. 
"According as it is written, The Deliverer 
shall come out of Sion; He shall turn away 
ungodliness from Jacob." This is the return 



A Mystery Made Known. 91 

of the Lord as Deliverer of His earthly- 
people. He comes again to Sion and then 
out of Sion He shines forth in His mighty 
power as Deliverer. This a most precious 
portion we have reached. The fact given 
here, that the second coming of Christ in 
His majesty, for the salvation, deliverance 
and restoration of His people, Israel, living 
in that day, is revealed throughout the Old 
Testament. It would be impossible to touch 
upon all the passages which teach it, and 
types which foreshadow this great event. 

Of the latter we mention the story of 
Joseph. There we see the man in power and 
glory, the man before whom the knee had 
to be bowed, the Revealer of Secrets. And 
when his brethren came the second time, he 
made himself known to them. There he 
stood attired in his royal robe* with royal 
authority. Before him eleven trembling men, 
hungry, in rags and terror stricken. And 



*Grand is the scene in which Joseph makes him- 
self known to his brethren. In the immense pillared 
hall, the walls of which are covered with mysterious 
hieroglypthics, there sits on a golden throne the 
second Pharaoh, his tall, beardless, statue-like 
figure clothed in white byssus, his bare arms orna- 
mented with golden bracelets, on his forehead the 
sacred golden serpent, and, through an interpreter, 



92 The Jewish Question. 

now he begins in the tenderness of his heart 
to weep and says: "Come near to me. . . . 
I am Joseph your brother, whom y* sold into 
Egypt. . . . then he kissed all his brethren 
and wept upon them." Blessed type of what 
it will be when He comes the second time and 
will "forgive them their sins and remember 
them no more." 

Or we think of Moses. When he came the 
first time to his brethren to deliver them they 
rejected him and the second time, forty years 
after, when the tribulation had risen to its 
greatest height, they received him and he 
led them forth. And in the New Testament 
we have a type in unbelieving Thomas. When 
the Lord had appeared the first time after 
His resurrection to the shut in disciples, and 
Thomas was not there, he declared, "Except 
I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, 
and put my finger into the print of the nails, 
and thrust my hand into his side, I will not 
believe" (John xx:25). Seven days pass by. 

is speaking cold, threatening words to frightened 
weather-beaten shepherd strangers. These are 
conscience stricken, and growing pale, whisper one 
to another, "We are verily guilty concerning our 
brother." Then the prince arises, descends from 
his throne, stretches his arms out towards them, 
and exclaims in well known Hebrew accents, "I am 
Joseph your brother." — F. Bettex, 



r A Mystery Made Known. 93 

Poor Thomas, how unhappy, in doubt and un- 
certainty he must have been! And after 
eight days again His disciples were within, 
and Thomas was with them. Then came 
Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the 
midst, and said, "Peace be unto you." And 
what will He do, He who searches the hearts ? 
Will He now condemn Thomas for his un- 
belief? Will He upbraid him for being so 
slow of heart? Not a word of it. "Then 
saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, 
and behold my hands; and reach hither thy 
hand, and thrust it into my side ; and be not 
faithless, but believing. ,, And Thomas 
answered Him: "My Lord and my God." 
Surely, thus it will be again when they who 
knew Him not will behold Him, the pierced 
One. There are thousands of orthodox Jews 
living to-day who firmly believe in the coming 
of Messiah, thousands in whom a changed 
attitude towards the person of the Lord 
Jesus Christ is noticeable. Was He perhaps 
the Messiah or was He not the promised One ? 
The question will be answered for them in 
that day. "Immediately after the tribulation 
of those days shall the sun be darkened, and 
the moon shall not give her light, and the 
stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers 
of the heavens shall be shaken. And then 



94 The Jewish Question. 

shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in 
heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the 
earth (land) mourn; and they shall see the 
Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven 
with power and great glory" (Matt. xxiv:29, 
30). "Behold He cometh with clouds, and 
every eye shall see Him, and they also which 
pierced Him, and all the tribes of the land 
shall wail because of Him. Even so. Amen" 
(Revel. i:7). "And they shall look upon me, 
whom they have pierced, and they shall 
mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only 
son, and shall be in bitterness for his first- 
born" (Zech. xii:10, 11). What a day that 
will be ! Tribulation has reached its height. 
There seems to be no escape. All at once 
there comes an ominous lull. The sun is 
gradually darkening and the moon dulls, 
while stars fall and the heavens and the 
earth are shaken. But what means that 
shining cloud up yonder? In the midst of 
the awe inspiring, fearful phenomena of na- 
ture, a cloud full of fire and glory! The 
remnant has been praying for divine inter- 
ference, for a manifestation from above. 
"Oh, that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, 
that Thou wouldest come down" (Is. lxxivrl). 
They know at once from their own Scripture 
that that cloud is the Shekinah, the garment 



A Mystery Made Knozvn. 95 

of Jehovah. Their whole past history comes 
up before them. Did not Jehovah dwell of 
old with our fathers and lead them ? Did He 
not scatter our enemies? Surely this is Je- 
hovah who shines forth! And so we hear 
them crying out in that dark, dark night. 
"Lo this is our God, we have waited for Him, 
and He will save us; this is the Lord; we 
have waited for Him, we will be glad and 
rejoice in His salvation" (Isaiah xxv:9). But 
the cloud ^omes near, flashes of glory light 
up the heavens (Hab. iii :3) ; the mighty light, 
like that light which fell upon Saul of Tarsus, 
the Pharisee of the Pharisees, stronger than 
the midday sun, illumines everything. And 
again they glance upward and behold sitting 
upon the cloud is one like the Son of Man 
(Daniel vii:13). Again they look upon that 
wonderful, wonderful scene and they see that 
Son of Man is pierced. And as it flashed upon 
the brethren of Joseph that the man in the 
royal robe is their brother, whom they had 
sold, thus it will flash upon Israel, it is Je- 
hovah-Jesus, whom they had rejected, their 
Messiah-King, who comes in power and great 
glory. Then they will say: "We hid as it 
were our faces from Him; He was despised 
and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath 
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; 



96 The Jewish Question. 

yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of 
God and afflicted. But He was wounded for 
our transgressions, He was bruised for our 
iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was 
upon Him ; and with His stripes we are heal- 
ed" (Isa. liii:3-5). "And His feet shall stand 
in that day upon the mount of Olives" (Zech. 
xiv:4). He has come again in like manner 
as He went away. And then He will turn 
away ungodliness from Jacob and take away 
their sins. The iniquity of the land and the 
people is removed in one day. (Zech. iii:9) : 
"Who hath heard such a thing? who hath 
seen such things? Shall the land be made 
to bring forth in one day ? or shall a nation be 
born at once ? For as soon as Zion travailed, 
she brought forth her children. . . . Rejoice 
with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye 
that love her; rejoice for joy with her, all ye 
that mourn for her" (Isaiah lxvi:8, 10). 
"And it shall come to pass afterward that I 
will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and 
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 
your old men shall dream dreams, your young 
men shall see visions" (Joel ii:28). "Neither 
will I hide my face any more from them ; for 
I have poured out my Spirit upon the house 
of Israel, saith the Lord God" (Ezek. xxxix: 
29) . But we must refrain from quoting more 



A Mystery Made Known. 97 

from the promises and the glory which are 
Israel's. There is not one word of all the 
gracious, blessed things, which the Lord has 
promised to Israel by the mouths of His holy 
prophets which will remain unfulfilled in that 
day. 

The passage here, "the Redeemer shall 
come out of Zion," is a quotation from two 
Old Testament Scriptures. Isaiah lix:20: 
"And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and 
unto them that turn from transgression in 
Jacob, saith the Lord." The second, Psalm 
xiv:7: "Oh, that the salvation of Israel were 
come out of Zion! When the Lord bringeth 
back the captivity of His people, Jacob shall 
rejoice and Israel shall be glad." 

May that day be hastened. May we pray 
earnestly, "Even so, come Lord Jesus ;" may 
He come soon to take us unto Himself and 
then it will be only a little while and these 
glorious scenes will be enacted upon this 
earth, Jerusalem will be delivered and become 
a praise in the earth, and the scattered nation 
will be gathered by the great Shepherd of 
Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Righteousness and peace will kiss each 
other then and the knowledge of the glory of 
the Lord will cover the earth as the waters 
the deep. There will be singing in the 



98 The Jewish Question, 

heavens and singing on the earth, "Peace on 
earth and glory to God in the highest." The 
center of rejoicing will be Jerusalem and a 
redeemed people, "Sing and rejoice, daugh- 
ter of Zion; for lo, I come to dwell in the 
midst of Thee, saith the Lord. And many 
nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day 
and shall be for my people and I will dwell 
in the midst of Thee, and thou shalt know, 
that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto 
thee" (Zech. ii:10, 11). 

Thus the great question : "Hath God cast 
away His people ?" is fully answered. After 
our meditation on these wonderful answers 
we have learned why the Holy Spirit makes 
the answers so emphatic. Far be the 
thought ! God's own Word, faithfulness and 
righteousness, are at stake. If He had cast 
away His people, if there were no future for 
them, no fulfillment of Old Testament prophe- 
cies, then might we well close our Bibles and 
despair. 

All praise and glory to God for He hath 
not cast away His people. 



CONCLUSION 

And now the conclusion. The doctrinal 
part of Komans has a grand and glorious 
summing up in Romans viii, beginning with 
the thirty-first verse: "What shall we then 
say to these things ? If God be for us, who 
can be against us ?" The dispensational sec- 
tion, Romans ix, x, and xi has also a sublime 
conclusion. 

"As regards the Gospel, they are enemies 
on your account ; but as regards election, be- 
loved on account of the fathers. For the 
gifts and calling of God are without repent- 
ance. For as indeed ye also have not believed 
in God, but now have been objects of mercy 
through the unbelief of these; so these also 
have now not believed in your mercy in order 
that they also may be objects of mercy. For 
God hath shut up together all in unbelief, in 
order that He might show mercy to all. O 
depths of riches, both of wisdom and knowl- 
edge of God! How unsearchable His judg- 
ments, and untraceable His ways ! For who 
has known the mind of the Lord, or who has 
been His counsellor? Or who has first given 



100 The Jewish Question. 

to Him, and it shall be rendered to him ? For 
of Him, and for Him are all things. To Him 
be glory forever. Amen." 

It is not our intention to follow these words 
in detail. Blessed it is to read once more the 
grand assurance, that God's gifts and calling 
are without repentance ; He will not go back 
on His Word. And Jews and Gentiles are 
all under mercy, which does not mean, that 
every Jew and Gentile will receive mercy, as 
taught by that unscriptural "restitution of 
all things." The Gentiles who believed, ob- 
tained mercy, and when at last the Lord 
somes again Israel will receive blessing, salva- 
tion, and enter on her inheritance through 
the sovereign mercy of God alone. And thus 
Jew and Gentile is a debtor to that wonderful 
mercy. 

It is this fact which brings forth the 
sublime doxology. What depths of riches 
both of wisdom and knowledge of God in 
God's merciful dealings with the Gentiles 
and with the Jews! How unsearchable His 
judgments! How untraceable His waysl 
May we even now join with our hearts in 
the praise of our God and our Father and 
delight ourselves more and more with His 
merciful ways. And as such who are saved 
by grace may we not forget that they are 



Conclusion. 101 

enemies as regards the Gospel on our account 
and as regards election, beloved for the 
Father's sake. May we remember Israel, His 
poor wandering, scattered sheep. May we 
not forget the debt we owe to that people, 
the people "whose is the adoption, and the 
glory, and the covenants, and the lawgiving, 
and the service and the promises ; whose are 
the fathers ; and of whom according to flesh 
is the Christ, who is over all, God blessed 
forever" (Rom, ix;45) r 



Zbc flfcesstanic (Slueetion 



Ebe flDessianic Question 

By. C. I. Scofield. 

It is unnecessary to say that "Messiah" 
and "Christ" are exactly equivalent terms; 
that they mean, in themselves, no more than 
anointed. This word, though, has come to 
have a special application to that personage 
upon whom the counsels of God as unfolded 
in the Scriptures converge. Really the Mes- 
sianic question, when we come to look at it 
closely, resolves itself into several questions. 

First of all, is it correct to say that there 
is any Messianic question? In other words, 
do the Scriptures contain a doctrine of the 
Messiah? There are some persons (not by 
any means destitute of learning) who deny 
that rightly understood, the Old Testament 
contains any Messianic doctrine. They claim 
that it has been altogether read into these 
Scriptures, first, by rabbis of olden time, the 
scribes and rulers, and then taken up, ampli- 
fied, and made central in evangelical theology 
by Christian exegetes. So there is, as you 



106 The Messianic Question. 

see, really a question as to whether there is 
a Messianic question. 

I do not regard this contention as very im- 
portant for the reason, if for no other, that it 
is not raised by any considerable number of 
persons. A little group of Jewish scholars 
and a little group of Gentile scholars very 
"advanced" as they call themselves do raise 
the question, but the great body of Jewish, as 
of Christian exegetes, maintain that there is 
a doctrine of the Messiah. Of course, they 
disagree on the one point of the identity of 
Messiah; the Jews denying the Messiahship 
of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christian exegetes 
affirming it. 

If we answer this question in the affirma- 
tive, and say that there is a doctrine of the 
Messiah, we, of course, come to another ques- 
tion: Who and what is Messiah? In other 
words, what marks of identity are attached 
to this personage in the Scriptures so that 
the world may be perfectly sure it is not de- 
ceived by an impostor; so that it will not be 
open to any one not the Messiah, to maintain 
a claim to the character, and thus falsely 
secure to himself the rights that properly be- 
long to the true Messiah. 

Of course, if there is any prophetic testi- 
mony concerning such a coming one, the ob- 



The Messianic Question. 107 

ject of that testimony must be two-fold: 
First, to furnish these very marks of identity 
of which I speak ; and secondly, to prepare the 
Jews and through them the world, to receive 
this personage when he should come. These 
two things are evident : God would not send 
into the world one having such rights as we 
shall find to belong to Messiah, without in 
some efficient way providing for his authen- 
ication. To illustrate, I understand there is 
somewhere a young man who claims to be, 
not merely the Messiah of the Old Testament, 
but the actual historic Christ of the New 
Testament, and he has gathered a number of 
deluded people who believe in him, and upon 
whose credulity he is living. Now how do 
we know that he is an impostor ? Because he 
does not answer to the prophetic portrait of 
Messiah. 

We come, then, to our second question: 
How may we know the Messiah ? What kind 
of person will he be ? Of what country ? Of 
what ancestry ? What works will he do ? 

Thirdly, we come to the question of funda- 
mental interest to us, as Christians, and sure- 
ly, of no less interest to the candid Jew : Was 
Jesus the Messiah ? A vast number of people 
(and no inconsiderable number of Jews) have, 
through all the ages, believed, with the 



108 The Messianic Question. 

Scriptures in their hands, that Jesus was the 
Messiah ; and, surely, our Jewish friends who 
do not so receive Him, will admit that it is a 
question of supreme national and personal 
import to them whether he be indeed that 
personage. 

Now it is evident that an inquiry as to the 
second of these questions will indirectly 
answer the first. If we can find in Scripture 
certain marks of identity put upon and about 
a certain Coming One, that answers the ques- 
tion as to whether there is a doctrine of the 
Messiah. We shall not, of course, find the 
prophetic portrait there unless there is com- 
ing or already come, the original from whom 
the portrait was painted. If there is no 
doctrine of the Messiah in Scripture, we shall 
fail to find the portrait. If, on the other 
hand, we do find the portrait, then we must 
say that there is a Messianic doctrine, who- 
ever the Messiah may turn out to be. 

It is also evident that the answer to the 
second question as to the marks of identity 
and of the conditions which must be fulfilled 
by the Messiah when He comes, will guide, 
and must guide us, in the answer to the third 
question : Is Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah ? 
If He is the Messiah, we shall know Him to 
be so because He answers exactly to every 



The Messianic Question. 109 

one of the Scriptural marks of identity given 
by the prophets. That must be the test. If, 
in even one of them — as many and as minute 
as they are — we find that Jesus fails, then we 
must say however great the cost may be to 
our hearts and thoughts and opinions that 
he is not the Messiah. If, on the other hand ; 
he fills out in every detail the prophetic 
picture of Messiah, without one exception, 
then, it seems to me that, by the same reason- 
ing, and by the same logical necessity, we are 
forced to say that Jesus is the Messiah. 

I. This is a Biblical question; it is not a 
question to be settled by appeal to theologians 
or rabbis. For it is perfectly evident that a 
Jewish scholar, for instance, might marshal 
as many and as eminent authorities from 
among his own intellectual and thoughtful 
people against the Messiaship of Jesus, as a 
Christian could bring to its support. That 
would be simply a clash of human and there- 
fore fallible opinion. The question is not to 
be determined by a show of hands. We must 
go back to the Old Testament and see for 
ourselves what doctrine of Messiah is there 
unfolded, and then test the claims of Jesus 
by that doctrine. 

Like all other parts of God's revelation we 
shall find it to proceed from the simple to the 



110 The Messianic Question. 

complex — from outline to detail. It is the 
divine method of revelation to begin with 
some outline truth, and then gradually, with 
stroke upon stroke of the brush, to put in 
the details until we have the fulness. "First 
the blade; then the ear; then the full corn 
in the ear" is the divine rule. We do not get 
the oak first, but the acorn, and afterward 
the oak. 

Just so it is with all Scripture. We shall 
find it true of this Messianic doctrine. It 
will begin with a germ-truth and proceed 
with increasing detail from simplicity to com- 
plexity. Let me turn now to Genesis iii:14, 
15: 

"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because 
thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, 
and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly 
shalt (thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days 
of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee 
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; 
it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his 
heel." 

Here lies in germ all redemptive and Mes- 
sianic truth. The woman's seed is to inflict 
upon Satan, finally, a fatal wound, but in so 
doing, is to suffer. It does not tell us much, 
and we will not read into it a word from 
subsequent revelation, but it does set us look- 



The Messianic Question. Ill 

ing for a descendant of that woman who shall 
be victorious over Satan. 

Let us turn now to Genesis xii:l-3: 

"Now the Lord had said unto Abram: Get theo 
out of thy country and from thy kindred, and from 
thy fathers house, unto a land that I will shew 
thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and 
I will bless thee and make thy name great; and 
thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that 
bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and 
in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." 

Now let us not treat these words unfairly. 
They are luminous in the light of what is to 
follow, but, certainly are not in themselves 
a promise that of the descendants of Abra- 
ham there should arise a Messiah. I want 
you only to notice here that a blessing is 
promised to this man Abraham for all the 
families of the earth. That is all, but hold 
that much firmly in mind. I will read now 
from Genesis xv:l-4. 

"After these things the word of the Lord came 
unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram; 
I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. 
And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, 
seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house 
is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, 
Behold, to me thou hast given no seed; and, lo, 
one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, 
the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This 
shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth 
out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir." 



112 The Messianic Question. 

Again in the xviii chapter, 18th verse: 

"Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great 
and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth 
shall be blessed in him." 

Again, be sure to keep within the limits of 
the text. This is no promise of a personal 
Messiah; so far we have only a nation in 
which all nations are to be blessed. Let me, 
however, anticipate enough to say that I am 
going to connect by an indisputable chain of 
evidence, the Messiah with this promise. 

Of course, I am assuming that the Genesis 
story is familiar to every one of you. You 
know that Abram had a son born in his house 
named Ishmael. At this time he was the 
only son, and Abram besought God to fulfill 
in Ishmael the promises which I have quoted, 
and this is God's answer: 

"And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a 
son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and 
I will establish my covenant with him for an ever- 
lasting covenant, and with his seed after him" 
(Gen. xvii:19). 

Here, you see, the principle of selection, of 
limitation, enters. And, of course, you see 
the bearing of it upon the identification of 
Messiah. Suppose an Ishmaelite comes to 
me and says: "I am the Messiah," I am 
ready to say, "No, whoever the Messiah may 



The Messianic Question. 113 

be, you are not the Messiah, you are a de- 
scendant of Ishmael, and not of Isaac. The 
Messiah must come through Isaac.' ' In this 
way, as we shall see, God narrows the pos- 
sibilities of deception until they are wholly 
excluded. Ishmael and all his descendants 
are excluded. The Messiah must come 
through Isaac. Let us now turn to Gen. 
xxviii:13, 14: 

"And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I 
am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the 
God of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee 
will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall 
be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread 
abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the 
north, and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed 
shall all the families of the earth be blessed." 

We have here, as you know, the scene at 
Bethel, where God entered into covenant with 
Jacob, the son of Isaac. And here again the 
principle of exclusion is seen. There had 
been another son, Esau, remember that ; and 
that the Abrahamic promise passes over Esau 
to Jacob. No descendant of Esau may claim 
the Messianic title. 

And now we are to see eleven of the twelve 
tribes of Israel excluded: 

"Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall 
praise; thy hand shall be in the neck of thine 
enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before 



114 The Messianic Question. 

thee. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my 
son, thou are gone up: he stoopeth down, he couched 
as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him 
up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor 
a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; 
and unto him shall the gathering of the people be" 
(Gen. xlix:8-10). 

You see how immensely the slender line of 
promise here gains in definiteness. Out of 
twelve tribes, one tribe is chosen, the tribe 
of Judah. From henceforth we look ex- 
pectantly to Judah only. It is not enough 
that the claimant of the Messiahship shall 
be an Israelite merely; he must establish a 
Judaic descent. 

Here, for the first time, we have the word 
"sceptre" indicating kingly power. We also 
have the word "Shiloh." The old Rabbis all 
agree that this is the description of Mes- 
siah as the Prince of Peace. The word Shiloh 
implies that. Notice another significant 
thing here. "To him shall the gathering of 
the people be." A Messiah mark. The people 
are to gather to him as a center. 

In Numbers xxiii, xxiv we have the suc- 
cessive prophetic visions of Balaam. I will 
read but one of them: 

"I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, 
but not nigh: there shall come a star out of Jacob, 
and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite 



The Messianic Question. 115 

the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children 
of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir 
also shall be a possession for his enemies; and 
Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come 
he that shall have dominion" (Num. xxiv: 17-19). 

Here we have "sceptre" again. When God 
has added a detail He never leaves it behind 
any more; it is always carried on. You are 
to note, too, that in these passages, we get, 
not only the idea of dominion, of rule, but 
also the idea of personality — "I shall see him, 
but not now." 

Let me anticipate an objection right here. 
Does not this mean the whole people of Is- 
rael ? Does not the Messianic doctrine really 
concern a people, rather than a person, and 
is it not true that the promises which we 
Christians are apt to make personal, are after 
all, rather indefinite ? That question is raised 
by some. But notice the words : "There shall 
come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall 
rise out of Israel." And to this we may add 
another statement contemporary with it: 

"The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a 
Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like 
unto me; unto him ye shall hearken" (Deuteronomy 
xviii:15). 

This passage, from the lips of Moses, adds 
one of the official titles of Messiah. The 



116 The Messianic Question. 

Sceptred One out of Israel is to be a Prophet 
also. 

Now we come to another limitation of the 
promise. It is the promise made to David 
concerning Solomon: 

"And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt 
sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after 
thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I 
will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house 
for my name, and I will establish the throne of his 
kingdom for ever. I will be his father and he shall 
be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten 
him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of 
the children of men; but my mercy shall not depart 
away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put 
away before thee. And thine house and thy king- 
dom shall be established for ever before thee; thy 
throne shall be established for ever." (2 Sam. vii: 
14, 16). 

Let us see how David understood this co- 
venant. We have his last words in the xxiii 
chapter of 2 Samuel, verses 1 to 5 : 

"Now these be the last words of David. David, 
the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised 
up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and 
the sweet Psalmist of Israel said: The Spirit of the 
Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue. 
The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to 
me: He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling 
in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light 
of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning 
without clouds; as the tender grass springing out 



The Messianic Question. 117 

of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although 
my house be not so with God; yet he hath made 
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all 
things, and sure." 

Here are the last words of David, the sweet 
Psalmist of Israel ; his life stained with many 
sins, yet a man who loved God supremely. 
As he lay there dying, his last thoughts 
turned to that promise which God made con- 
cerning his seed. 

Let us see now how the prophets inter- 
preted that promise: 

"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem 
of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots; 
and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the 
spirit of wisdom and understanding; the spirit of 
counsel and might; the spirit of knowledge, and of 
the fear of the Lord" (Isaiah xi:l, 2). 

Well, but some one says, this might have 
referred to any descendant of David. It 
might have referred to the line of King 
Josiah, for instance, who was of the Davidic 
line. Let us see. I will read the tenth verse : 

"And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, 
which shall stand for an ensign of the people, to 
it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be 
glorious." 

"In that day." What day? A day which 
has not yet dawned. Hear verse two : 



118 The Messianic Question. 

"And it shall come to pass in that day that the 
Lord shall set his hand again the second time to 
recover the remnant of his people, which shall be 
left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Path- 
ros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from 
Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of 
the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the na- 
tions, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and 
gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four 
corners of the earth." 

When Isaiah wrote these words, the people 
had not gone into Assyria, and this prophecy 
has never been fulfilled down to this day. 

Let us now turn to the prophecy of Jere- 
miah. Of course, I pass over chapter after 
chapter in Isaiah which might be quoted. I 
want you to notice the word "Branch" as a 
mark of identification. 

"Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will 
raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King 
shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment 
and justice in the earth" (Jeremiah xxiii:5). "For 
thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man 
to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither 
shall the priests, the Levites, want a man before me 
to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offer- 
ings, and to do sacrifice continually. And the word 
of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith 
the Lord, If ye can break my covenant of the day 
and my covenant of the night, and that there should 
not be day and night in their season; then may also 



The Messianic Question. 119 

my covenant be broken with David, my servant, that 
he should not have a son to reign upon his throne" 
(Jeremiah xxxiii: 17-21). 

Here again is a narrowing of the whole 
Messianic outlook. We began with a promise 
that might have been fulfilled in any man 
born of woman; it was narrowed first into 
the man, Abram; then Ishmael and his 
posterity were excluded and Isaac chosen; 
then Esau and his descendants were excluded 
and Jacob chosen; then out of the twelve 
sons of Jacob Judah was chosen, and now, 
out of all Judah, David and his line. Who- 
ever the Messiah is, he must come from the 
kingly house of David, and therefore must 
be of Judah — a Jew. Do you not see how the 
marks of identity are accumulating? It 
would not do even for a Jew to say "I am the 
Messiah/' unless he could establish his Da- 
vidic descent. 

II. It seems to me that we are getting a 
very positive sort of Messianic doctrine, and 
very definite sort of Messianic doctrine as 
well. 

And so far it has been perfectly simple 
and quite within the limits of the natural. 
But now we come to something in this line 
of descent which is miraculous. Turn back 
with me to the prophecy of Isaiah. I will 



120 The Messianic Question. 

read the 13th and 14th verses of the vii 
chapter. 

"And he said, Hear ye now, house of David; Is 
it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye 
weary my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself 
shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall con- 
ceive and bear a son, and shall call His name 
Immanuel." 

You know the meaning of that word — "God 
with us." I want you to observe that these 
words are addressed to the house of David. 
You know we speak sometimes of this or that 
part of Scripture as difficult to understand. 
Students have come to me with the ix chap- 
ter of Romans to say that they could not 
understand it; and people say that the pas- 
sage I have just read is a difficult passage. 
The fact is, that the difficulty is not in under- 
standing it, but in believing it. It is all plain 
enough. There could not be a simpler state- 
ment put into words. God promised to give 
the house of David a sign by which it might 
know the long promised One when He should 
appear. The sign would be that, in that 
house and family, a virgin should conceive 
and bear a son; therefore, of course, super- 
naturally and miraculously conceived. The 
explanation of so strange an event is in the 
name — Immanuel. 



The Messianic Question. 121 

Remember, I am reading now from the 
prophecy of Isaiah — Jewish scripture — and 
not from the New Testament, The im- 
maculate conception and Deity of Messiah is, 
therefore, an Old Testament doctrine. The 
New Testament merely confirms it. 

And that doctrine, equally with all others, 
is to be received by faith. God makes the 
revelation clear enough; then it is to be be- 
lieved. We know what it is — not always how 
it is. And how should it be otherwise ? "My 
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are 
my ways your ways, saith the Lord. For as 
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are 
my ways higher than your ways, and my 
thoughts than your thoughts." And that is 
an absolutely necessary corollary to the 
postulate of a God. If His thoughts were no 
higher than my thoughts, He would be pre- 
cisely of my dimensions, and I would not 
worship Him, neither would I give any heed 
to His book. 

I will now trun to Isaiah ix:6, 7: 

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is 
given, and the government shall be upon His shoul- 
der; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- 
sellor, the mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the 
Prince of Peace." 

This is the same Davidic personage, mark- 



122 The Messianic Question. 

ed by his peculiar kingly right, for the pas- 
sage proceeds: 

"Of the increase of His government and peace 
there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and 
upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it 
with judgment and with justice, from henceforth, 
even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will 
perform this." 

Let me recapitulate for a moment : 

(1) Messiah must be of the seed of Eve; 
that is to say, he must be human, a man. An 
angel cannot be Messiah. One of the Cheru- 
bim or Seraphim cannot be Messiah. What- 
soever else Messiah is, he is human. 

(2) He must be the seed of Abraham; a 
Hebrew, not a Gentile. 

(3) He must be of the line of Isaac and 
Jacob; not an Ishmaelite, nor an Edomite. 

(4) He must be of the tribe of Judah — a 
Jew. 

(5) He must be of the royal family of 
David, among the families of Judah. Even 
in Judah only David's family can produce 
him. 

(6) He must be miraculously born of a 
virgin mother. 

(7) He must be "Immanuel" — God with us ; 
the mighty God, the everlasting Father. 



The Messianic Question. 123 

But how can the mighty God, the ever- 
lasting Father, be also a man ? 

Where do these ideas ever come together 
again ? In one of the four Gospels of the New 
Testament. There we find this statement. 
Understand me, I do not say an explanation, 
but a statement. God is not greatly con- 
cerned to explain Himself to us. This is the 
statement : "In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God, And the Word became flesh and 
dwelt among us" (John i:l, 14). . 

And I submit that the statement is ade- 
quate and satisfying. If the mighty God 
chose to become "flesh," and to tabernacle 
among us it was, most evidently, within His 
power to do it. 

III. Is there nothing in addition to this? 
Nothing, for instance, as to the time when 
Messiah should appear? It is evident that 
the time of the birth of Messiah is, if revealed 
a very important mark of identification. I 
think if we look at the prophecy of Daniel, 
we shall find there a very clear revelation as 
to the time Messiah should appear. Daniel 
ix:21-23. 

"Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the 
man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the 
beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me 



124 The Messianic Question. 

about the time of the evening oblation. And he 
informed me, and talked with me, and said O Daniel, 
I am now come forth to give thee skill and under- 
standing. At the beginning of thy supplications 
the commandment came forth, and I am come to 
shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved; therefore 
understand the matter and consider the vision. 
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and 
upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and 
to make an end of sins." 

Remember Israel was now under punish- 
ment from God — not cast off, but punished 
by captivity for national sins. 

"And to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to 
bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up 
the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most 
Holy." 

That is, to finally bring in the time, of 
which I shall speak when the subject of the 
millennium is before us, when a restored Is- 
rael, in full fellowship with the God of their 
fathers, shall be the channel of His blessings 
to the earth. 

"Know, therefore, and understand, that from the 
going forth of the commandment to restore and to 
build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall 
be seven weeks and three score and two weeks; the 
street shall be built again, and the wall, even in 
troublous times. And after three score and two 
weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Him- 
self; and the people of the prince that shall come 
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary." 



The Messianic Question. 125 

Now observe, between the time when 
Daniel was seeing visions and the prophesy- 
ing in Babylon, and the destruction of Jeru- 
salem in the year 70 A. D., the whole thing 
is limited. The coming of Messiah, and the 
cutting off of Messiah, must take place before 
the sweeping destruction of Jerusalem and 
the sanctuary. Whatever this seventy weeks 
means, it is a period (except the last week) 
that must fall between Daniel's time and the 
year A. D. 70, for since the year 70, there has 
been no sanctuary in Jerusalem. There the 
temple was destroyed in that year, and has 
never been rebuilt. Here then, is another 
vastly important condition. The Messiah 
must not only possess the unique personality 
which we have been considering, but He must 
appear between the time when Daniel prophe- 
sied, say B. C. 538, and the time when Jerusa- 
lem was destroyed, A. D. 70. So much for 
the time-limit. 

And now we come to another condition 
which Messiah must meet. The prophet Mi- 
cah foretells the very place of his nativity: 

But thou, Bethlehem-Ephratah, though thou be 
little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of 
thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler 
in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of 
old, from everlasting (Micah. v;2). 



126 The Messianic Question. 

Here we have the Divine again. These 
words are plain and simple enough. Who is 
this ruler who is to come out of Bethlehem ? 
It is He whose goings forth have been from 
everlasting. 

Bear in mind now, that, to the seven marks 
of identity in our recapitulation of a few 
minutes ago, we must now add that Messiah 
must appear between B. C. 538, and A. D. 70, 
and that He must have Bethlehem-Ephratah 
for His birthplace. So far all is clear. 

IV. But the very passage from Danie. 
which furnished us with the time-limit sug- 
gested also a difficulty. Up to that point we 
had been reading about a sceptred one, a 
mighty king of David's line who was also the 
mighty God. But Daniel tells us distinctly 
that after a certain time "shall Messiah be 
cut off." 

That raises a difficulty. What is this about 
a Divine King who is reigning victoriously 
over everything, being cut off, "but not for 
himself?" Now this difficulty is not to be 
explained away, for if we turn to Isaiah and 
the Psalms, we shall find a great deal of the 
same sort. See, for example, Isaiah lii:13: 

Behold my servant shall deal prudently, he shall 
be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many 
were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred 



The Messianic Question. 127 

more than any man, and his form more than the 
sons of men." 

But is it Messiah of whom Isaiah is talk- 
ing ? Compare Zechariah iii :8 : 

"Hear now, Joshua the high priest, thou and 
thy fellows that sit before thee; for they are men 
wondered at; for behold I will bring forth my 
servant, The Branch." 

What do we find David's son called 
throughout the prophets? Just these two 
names, "Branch" and "my servant." This 
certainly seems mysterious; here is Jeho- 
vah's Servant who is going to be extolled, ex- 
alted and very high, and yet his visage is to 
be more marred than any man. And the dif- 
ficulty apparently gets more difficult as we 
go on. To return to Isaiah, read the liii. 
chapter 1-9. 

Then we have the xxii Psalm, which most 
commentators — Christian and some Jewish 
— agree is Messianic, with its despairing cry, 
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me !" and its tragic burden of pierced hands 
and feet. Here we have then, on the one 
hand, a glorious king, in Himself Deity, so 
that He has all power, whose very name is 
Immanuel — "God with us ;" yet, on the other 
hand, with His visage more marred than any 
man, His bones out of joint, dying with 



128 The Messianic Question. 

thirst, while His vesture is parted and lots 
cast for it. How can Messiah be a mighty 
king, and yet be such an abject sufferer? 
How can he be the great Davidic monarch 
restoring again the glory of Solomon's house, 
and also a sacrifice bearing the sins and ini- 
quities of Israel and all the people? How 
can it be ? Clearly, destinies so strongly con- 
trasted could not be accomplished simultane- 
ously. There is only one answer possible. 
There is but one word which can link the 
glorious reigning with the suffering and the 
death and that word is "resurrection." Sup- 
pose that, in the divine purpose, the mighty 
drama is to be in two acts ? Suppose the suf- 
fering Messiah and the glorious Messiah to 
be one, divided by death, reunited by resur- 
rection? Suppose Messiah came, and was 
"cut off" as Daniel predicted, and suppose 
that His life came again; then all the other 
and glorious side of the picture is still pos- 
sible, is it not? If He did not come before 
A. D. 70 He can never come, and the prophets 
are false witnesses. If He came and died, 
and went into the grave and remained there, 
then God promised Israel and David some- 
thing that He cannot perform; but if He 
came forth out of the grave, the earthly glory 
is all possible yet. 



The Messianic Question, 129 

Well, you say, but is not the doctrine of the 
resurrection a New Testament doctrine? Is 
it not something that Christians invented to 
bridge this very difficulty, and make it pos- 
sible to reconcile the prediction of Messiah's 
earthly greatness, with the predictions of 
His humiliation and death? No, indeed; 
resurrection is an Old Testament doctrine, as 
we shall presently see. 

As matter of belief you Christians — the 
great mass of you — practically reject the 
voluminous testimony of the prophets con- 
cerning the earthly glory and power of the 
Messiah "upon the throne of David" (Isa. ix: 
7) ; while you Jews — the great mass of you 
— will not receive the abundant testimony of 
your own prophets as to Messiah's humilia- 
tion and death. Against both of you there 
is levelled the reproach of Jesus: "0 fools, 
and slow of heart to believe all that the pro- 
phets have spoken." The truth is that resur- 
rection is the bridge from Messiah's death 
to Messiah's glory, and that the Second Ad- 
vent supplements and completes the first. 

Now I want you to notice with me just two 
or three Old Testament passages upon the 
question of resurrection. Take, for instance, 
Job xix:25: 

"For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that 



130 The Messianic Question. 

He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; 
and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, 
yet in my flesh shall I see God." 

Job lived before the law, before the Penta- 
teuch was written. Did not Job believe in 
resurrection? There was his body which 
was going to be food for worms, yet, said he, 
"In my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall 
see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, 
and not another." 

In the xvii. Psalm and 15th verse, we have 
David's faith in the resurrection: 

"As for me," says David, "I will behold 
thy face in righteousness: I shall be satis- 
fied when I awake with thy likeness." 

The resurrection is not a new doctrine; it 
is as old as Job, and was David's hope. Now 
let us turn to the xvi Psalm and see a 
promise concerning the Messiah. Many of 
the old rabbis, as well as commentators, inter- 
pret the xvi Psalm of Messiah. I will read 
the eighth verse : 

"I have set the Lord always before me: because* 
He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. There- 
fore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth; my 
flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not 
leave my soul in sheol; neither wilt thou suffer 
thine Roly One to see corruption." 

Here is not only the doctrine of the resur- 



The Messianic Question. 131 

rection, but a definite promise that Messiah 
should be raised from the dead. 

In Daniel xii:2, the matter becomes, if 
possible, more definite still: 

"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the 
earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and 
some to shame and everlasting contempt." 

Daniel went to the grave with the promise 
that he should stand in his lot at the end 
of the days. Resurrection then is the word 
that bridges the whole difficulty, which re- 
conciles the apparent contradiction of so 
many Scriptures. In other words, Messiah 
comes ; Messiah accomplishes all that is pre- 
dicted of Him concerning suffering, humilia- 
tion and death ; He rises from the grave, and 
comes again to set up the kingdom, and to 
complete the fulfillment of prophecy. 

V. But, it may fairly be asked, is not this 
doctrine of a second advent of Messiah to 
restore the Davidic monarchy and make good 
the multitudinous unfulfilled promises to 
Israel a mere invention to bolster the Mes- 
sianic claims of Jesus? In other words, is 
it clearly taught in Scripture ? 

Every Jew familiar with the words of the 
Prophets is aware that whatever else Mes- 
siah does He must restore Israel or leave the 



132 The Messianic Question. 

great mass of prediction concerning Him un- 
fulfilled. 

I turn to the first chapter of the Acts of 
the Apostles, and begin at the sixth verse : 

"When they, therefore, were come together, they 
asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time 
restore again the kingdom to Israel?" 

Observe, the question was not at all as to 
whether He was going to restore the king- 
dom to Israel, but simply and only as to when 
He would do it. 

Remember, before you begin to say "how 
carnal, how material, how unspiritual are 
these men! Will they never understand 
Jesus," that, indwelt by the Holy Spirit 
(John xx:22), with understandings opened 
to understand the Scriptures (Luke xxiv:45) 
they had been sitting forty days at the feet 
of the risen Lord while He taught them con- 
cerning kingdom truth (Acts i:3). I think 
they had some advantages over our com- 
mentators in the matter of prophetic study. 
Evidently they felt their understanding of 
kingdom truth to be complete except at one 
point — the time of the restoration. Here is 
Jesus' answer : 

"And he said unto them, it is not for you to know 
the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put 
in His own power." 



The Messianic Question. 133 

Suppose one agent after another, fully 
authorized to speak for me, had promised in 
my behalf that at some time I would perform 
a certain action, and that, finally interrogated 
in person as to the time when I would per- 
form that action I should say: "I decline 
to speak upon that point/' would it not be 
a monstrous perversion to say that I thereby 
discredited my agents, and that my words 
must be understood as announcing that I 
intended never to perform the act? 

In the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the 
Apostles it is distinctly stated that after 
gathering out of the Gentiles a people for 
His name, He will return. Sixteenth verse: 

"After this I will return, and will build again 
the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and 
I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set 
it up; that the residue of men might seek after the 
Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is 
called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things." 

Such is the Messianic doctrine. 

And now we come to our final question, 
Was Jesus that Messiah? 

No one questions that Jesus was of the 
family of David. In all the record of His 
life, where He was brought into sharpest 
controversy with those who rejected utterly 
His Messianic claims, the objection never was 



134 The Messianic Question. 

made that He was not of the line of David. 
No one ever denied that He was a descendant 
of Abraham, or of the tribe of Judah, or 
born in Bethlehem of Judea. Don't you see 
that the sure and simple way to settle for- 
ever the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah, 
if He were indeed an imposter, was in the 
power of those who were rigidly examining 
those claims? A disproof of his Davidic 
descent, or a disproof of his birth at Bethle- 
hem, and every disciple would have left him 
at once. 

Then again: Immediately — certainly 
within fifty days — after Jesus' death was 
accomplished, men went through Jerusalem 
and Judea preaching that he was risen from 
the dead. There, again, was an opportunity 
to end His cult by simply disproving the 
fact. Indeed, it never could have survived 
the disproof of even one of the eleven points 
of identification. 

At the present time no man can either es- 
tablish or disprove a claim to Davidic an- 
cestry. For that reason alone, Messiah must 
have come before the genealogical registers 
were destroyed. In Christ's day the genealo- 
gical registers were open to all, and a Jewish 
man could prove his descent, but at present 
he cannot do so, therefore, the Messiah can- 



The Messianic Question. 135 

not appear for the first time now. Either 
the whole Messianic prophecy falls to the 
ground, or the Messiah has already appeared. 
The historic facts concerning Jesus of 
Nazareth are notorious, simple, undisputed. 
See how the lines of proof, of identity, con- 
verge upon Jesus, and upon no one else. 

1. He is a descendant of Eve — a Man. 

2. He is the seed of Abraham, nay, the 
very seed. 

3. He derives His Abrahamic ancestry 
through Jacob, not Esau ; Isaac, not Ishmael. 

4. He is of the Tribe of Judah. 

5. He is David's Son, and heir of the 
Davidic covenant. 

6. He was miraculously conceived in the 
womb of a virgin. 

7. He proved His Deity by works beyond 
the power of man ; by superhuman holiness ; 
by the resurrection from the dead, and by 
His influence upon the world, 

8. He appeared at precisely the right 
time according to Daniel's prophecy. 

9. He was born, against all human proba- 
bility, in Bethlehem-Ephratah. 

10. He fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah 
concerning His vicarious sacrifice. 

11. He died in precisely the manner fore- 
told in Psalm xxii. His hands and feet were 



136 The Messianic Question. 

pierced, and His executioners cast lots upon 
His raiment. 

It is evident, (1) that no one could bring 
these signs upon himself; (2) that they are 
too numerous, specific and minute to leave 
an accidental fulfillment among the possibili- 
ties; (3) that, therefore, the being in whom 
they all centre is the Messiah ; and (4) that, 
since they all centre upon Jesus, it follows 
that He is Messiah. 

And now, a closing word to you, my Jew- 
ish readers. Some of you are looking for 
Messiah. Well, He is coming. That is the 
"blessed hope" of Jew, and Christian. Be- 
lieve this, hold it fast, whatever betides. But 
I implore you by everything you hold dear, 
believe also that He has come. The humilia- 
tion, the sacrificial death is accomplished; 
the glory is coming. Between now and that 
time when Messiah shall come in glory, how 
unspeakably solemn and important is the 
question of our personal relation to Him. 
My friends — Jew and Gentile alike — "there 
is no other name given under heaven whereby 
we must be saved." The thought of a sinner 
ever reaching God's presence apart from 
sacrifice, is foreign to the whole of Scripture. 
What sacrifice can we offer? The temple is 
gone, the priesthood is gone, is there no sac- 



The Messianic Question. 137 

rifice for us? Yes, there is; there is the 
sacrifice of Messiah. I claim it and need no 
other. Having believed in that sacrifice, and 
received Him as the Messiah, the Son of the 
Blessed — I await, in perfect peace, the time 
when He shall gloriously return to receive me 
to Himself, and to reign on the earth. I may 
die before that time comes; even so I shall 
go to Him by virtue of that sacrifice, trust- 
ing in His shed blood. 

How is it with you? God has given you 
this chain of evidence, has affixed to that 
one person, among all the sons of men and 
sons of God, the marks of Messiah, will you 
now turn away from Him? Receive Him 
now. "He came unto His own, and His own 
received Him not, but as many as received 
Him, to them gave He power to become the 
sons of God." Will you not say, and with 
heartfelt conviction: "Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the living God." 



The Prophet Daniel 

From the large number of 
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